Byron and the Kindness of Strangers

By Byron Stratford Davis

In 1938, at the tender age of eighteen months, Byron Stratford Davis, the author of this memoir, first set foot on British soil. Remarkably, from that moment, his memories crystallized with exceptional clarity, etching themselves permanently in his mind.

His mother, with a German lover back in Hamburg, may or may not have come to England as a German spy. The decision of her true intent is left to the reader’s judgment. Raised in Scotland, his mother was far from the endearing or conventional figure one might wish for. By the age of eighteen months, Byron had already developed a deep mistrust of her, and by two, he had resolved to distance himself from her entirely. Hard to believe? That’s for you to judge! This tale unfolds in a modern Dickensian fashion, revealing its truths along the way.

More than just a World War II story, this narrative is unique in its exploration of friendship and the profound impact of the City of Brighton. It’s not only a recounting of survival and self-discovery but also a love story and a heartfelt tribute to the city and its remarkable inhabitants who played a pivotal role in shaping and rescuing him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035840946

Byron Stratford Davis

In 1938 at the age of 18 months, Byron Stratford Davis, a refugee child of a Scottish mother who was working in Germany and an absent American father, arrived in England from Germany. Over the next five years, several kind and talented strangers in the city of Brighton and Hove were instrumental in creating and mapping out his future life as a searcher, explorer, physician, and writer-poet.

Book preview

About the Author

In 1938 at the age of 18 months, Byron Stratford Davis, a refugee child of a Scottish mother who was working in Germany and an absent American father, arrived in England from Germany. Over the next five years, several kind and talented strangers in the city of Brighton and Hove were instrumental in creating and mapping out his future life as a searcher, explorer, physician and writer-poet.

Dedication

With appreciation to my editor Philip Dacosta, my wife Lone Due Petersen, my secretary Lenka Acreman, to my sister Christine Wren Zukowski, and to the many kind citizens of Brighton mentioned in this book, who helped create me, and to the magnificent cities of Brighton and Hove.

Copyright Information ©

Byron Stratford Davis 2024

The right of Byron Stratford Davis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035840922 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035840939 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781035840946 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Chapter One

The Kindness of Strangers and

the Early Years of World War II

Byron Stratford Davis

Many books and films have already described life and events during World War II in the United Kingdom, but few from a child’s perspective. Because this book is based upon the views and memories of a child, it may be a story, unlike other war stories you may have read, experienced or seen recreated in films.

This is a child’s true story concerning the bombing, the devastation and the loss of life that came during the early years of World War II in Brighton. It is also a story of discovery and how both the kind and generous men, women and the city of Brighton came together to rescue and help create me. This is above all a book about the kindness of strangers, who became both friends and a child’s first loves.

This book is also, very much a love story. I would suspect that many individuals might find it difficult to believe that the young child I am about to describe, could truly have fallen in love and remain so for the rest of his life. I have no doubt the incredible and often life-changing experiences associated with a First Love has changed the lives of many young men and women, but why not also a child? Why is it a first love can be of such importance to our lives and why, for some, can a First Love be a most difficult and life-challenging journey, even for a child? Something never to be forgotten.

I don’t know if any of us can truly say we survived our first or even later loves or in my case, whether I even wanted to. Does anyone? But can a kind stranger who comes into the life of a child also change a child’s life to the same degree as a first love? Well they did.

Whether they have been a kind stranger or a most important first love or a city such as Brighton, I have never been able to forget the city or any of those individuals who suddenly appeared in my life, who, in effect, created me. Yet, this great city and each one of these individuals, I am about to set down and describe in the following pages, have been of great importance to the indelible mosaic of my life.

This story, The Kindness of Strangers, also concerns the fragmented journey into the foreign world of another’s soul and mind. It relates how chance occurrences, accidents and strangers combined during the early years of World War II in the amazing city of Brighton in England to create an individual. Irretrievable and often terrifying loss may also form a significant part of a child’s psyche, yet often, terrifying loss, which might have destroyed another, somehow, helped build the strength of the person I was to become.

But most of all, this is the story of a child in Brighton during the exciting and challenging early years of WORLD WAR II, a war which was to change the lives of so many men, women and children. I dedicate this book, to the great city, known as London-by-the-Sea, the cities of Brighton and Hove and to the kindness of strangers, the remarkable, ever-changing people who live and who have lived in this amazing city.

But caution!

Byron and The Kindness of Strangers is not a story for children.

Chapter Two

Coming Alive

1938–1939: From the ages of 18 months to two years

There are still so many things in life which I do not know, but years have passed and to this day, I still don’t know, if my mother had somehow conspired in the deaths of my two best friends, my father Cyril Cuthbert Wrenn, who, when I was a young child, gave me, warmth, kindness, and love. Then there was my dear friend and seductive teacher, Younghusband’s soldier, the man, who gave me the world.

I was never poor. Poverty is as much a state of mind as it is of financial wealth. There is no doubt that some people’s lives begin in wealth, power, luxury and privilege. Fortunately, that was not a description of the first days and years of my life. During my lifetime, I have known several wealthy, powerful and privileged people and yet, I have sometimes tended to feel sorry for them. These unfortunate individuals may never have known the joy of Icarus’s first flight, nor his despair when his wings failed him and he fell, crashing to the earth.

We all know this mythical story of Icarus, but we are never told the story of how Icarus, then got up again, dusted himself off, bruised and hurting and tried once more to fly and if not that time, eventually succeeded. What I wish to relate to you is just such a story and it is probably the story of most men, women, children and youths who have eventually succeeded in their life’s goals. Probably, most of those that have succeeded did so because they never, never gave up.

I also assume that at times we all have been troubled by difficulties in memory. As I set down these words, I am now 86 and although this has become a constant annoyance; it has persisted throughout my life. Even as a child, failures of memory repeatedly annoyed me.

However, elements of my memory have continued to bother me, both my memory for an individual’s name and my inability to push back my memory before the age of 18 months. Try and try as I have, I have never been able to remember being born that hot August summer morning, in 1936, in Buffalo, in the Millard Fillmore Hospital, in the State of New York in the USA or any of the subsequent 18 months of my early life when I was first given away. Nor do I remember being deported from the United States, as an undesirable alien in 1938, when I was less than one and a half years old.

Understandably, the USA has deported many people with and without fault, whether they were born in the USA or not, particularly if their Scottish mother came to America as an illegal, as mine did. Nor do I blame the authorities. Had I been a judge of my mother, I too would have signed the deportation order.

Regarding my birth father, during my first several years, I knew nothing of his existence other than the fact that he was an American. But why me? Even at that young age, it would appear that I was already considered by the state to be some sort of criminal and, if not a criminal, definitely an undesirable.

At the very least, I was undoubtedly a most curious child, not necessarily one that you would have liked to call your own. So, when I was shipped to Europe on my first ocean liner, it appears I was already in trouble with the law. Scarcely a propitious beginning! Still, being deported is certainly one way to obtain free passage across the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfortunately, despite the fact I have a photograph of myself on that ship, still in diapers, I am unable to remember that journey either. Nor do I have any remembrance of my arriving in Germany, nor the train ride to Silesia, in what was then south-eastern Germany, now in Poland. Fortunately, my stay there was quite brief.

The year 1938 was not a salacious time for anyone to be in Germany, but I don’t remember that either. I then left Germany for France and eventually was taken on another small ship, from there to England. This was possible during the winter of 1937–1938, well prior to my being two years old.

Yet my real birth did not occur in Buffalo nor in Germany or France, but when both my eyes and my brain finally awoke, together, when I looked out and saw what really was my world, for the very first time. That precise moment occurred on a dark, moist night, the moment I first arrived in England. So, I have always believed, it was only then when I was truly born, that moment when I first looked out and saw the world. I was small, only eighteen months, but that didn’t matter; I instantly knew that I wanted it all.

My first awakening was wonderful. Curiously, I remember the arrival of that ship as it first docked in England. I remember the time very well; it was during the voluptuous darkness of evening and I found myself, standing alone, my head barely able to stretch over the ship’s cold damp metal railing, to peer at the docks below. I clearly remember looking through the mist, to the forward part of the ship and, in retrospect, realising the ship was no longer than 200 feet in length.

I remember the delicious perfume of that wet night air, scented with the smell of kelp, saltwater and the opulent perfume of wet hemp rope and tar. I can even remember that wonderful acid smell of the wet brass pylons to which my ship was being attached to the shore. I remember the unintelligible voices of the stevedores tying the ship to those brass moorings below me. The voices of the dock workers sounded like music. It was all magic.

The darkness obscured all but the small ill-lit area below me. But I remember even then, wondering, what lay beyond this wonderful darkness. It was at that very moment, that I found myself falling in love with this minuscule glimpse of this wonderful place, which eventually I was to discover, people called the world.

Somehow, I even knew then there were infinite possibilities that lay just beyond that darkness. I had to explore this new land. It was the first time I realised I existed and that world, hidden in darkness, was instantly my Very First Love.

I had no understanding then that this world and everything in it, was, not to be my only love, nor did I realise then, the danger that falling in love was to eventually cause me.

You might question that a child of less than two years could recall the place in the world where he first found himself, at a given moment and with such detail. Surely, he would not remember the sounds, the perfumes and even the desires coursing through his brain, certainly not at eighteen months. Yet, these memories were not only real, but in many ways, they were the beginning of what turned out to be a most inquisitive, nosy, explorative and undoubtedly the most annoying, troublesome child you could have ever met.

Nor was it curious that I found myself seemingly alone when I first realised I was alive. But, in reality, I was never alone, not then and not later. I was always accompanied by this curious brain into