The Girls Meet Their Father, Who Is Back From The War

1940

In this tender moment captured on a crisp day in 1940, two young sisters, ribbons in their hair and hand in hand, rush across a grassy lawn to embrace their father—his arms outstretched from a wooden‑framed wheelchair, his uniform still bearing the creases of service. The girls’ matching floral dresses and the soldier’s restrained joy convey both the resilience of family bonds and the bittersweet reality of wartime separations.

Historical Context
By 1940, thousands of British servicemen were granted brief home‑leaves between deployments to France, North Africa or the looming theatres of World War II. These reunions—often enacted in public parks or convalescent homes—were a vital morale boost for communities still adjusting to rationing, blackout drills and the ever‑present threat of air raids. The wheelchair suggests the father may have been wounded or weakened by his service, underscoring the sacrifices made on both battlefront and home front.

Share Your Own Vintage Finds!
Have sepia‑toned postcards, family snapshots of wartime reunions or other home‑front memories? Upload your photographs to OldPik.com and help us preserve the personal stories and shared resilience of Britain’s wartime generation—one image at a time.

SEO Tags
vintage photo, 1940 wartime reunion, British soldier homecoming, WWII family home front, antique UK postcard, wartime morale, soldier in wheelchair, interwar childhood, home front history, OldPik uploads

Contributed by OldPik on January 6, 2025

Image

The Girls Meet Their Father, Who Is Back From The War
You must be logged in to comment on the photos.
Log in

No comment yet, be the first to comment...

Nearby photos

Nuns at a Smoke Break

Return to Home from Exile

Beer Drinking Champion

Young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret with Their Dog Chang

One of the First Rolls-Royce 10 HP Models

Roadside Picnic

Lifting Sweets Restrictions and Pastry Shop Opening

Prince Alemayehu of Ethiopia

Evacuation of the crew of a stranded trawler

Double-decker trolleybus

Agatha Christie at Her Desk

London Undercover Central Line