Bermuda is where my mother and father first met and fell in love between 1949 and 1951.
Dad (Eddie Hillman) was born in Melksham, Wiltshire, UK on the 28th of February 1930. At the age of 16 he left school and joined His Majesty’s Royal Naval Boys Service, training as Dental Sick Berth Attendant (SBA) in the Royal Navy and being posted to Bermuda in 1949. Mum (Mary Mill) was born at the opposite end of the UK, in Inverkeithing, Fife on 3rd November 1933. My Mum’s father worked as a civilian in HMRN Dockyard Rosyth in Fife and transferred to the RN Dockyard in Bermuda in 1949.
Mum worked for the Bermuda Electric Company and in the evenings at the dockyard cinema. This is where Mum and Dad met and in Dad’s words it was love at first sight! Dad proposed to Mum within a few weeks of meeting her. My Grandmother insisted that my Dad ask my Grandfather for permission to marry my Mum. Thankfully he did as my Mum and Grandmother where listening with their ears to the door! Mum phoned her work saying she was sick in order to get the day off, so that she and Dad could get the ferry to Hamilton to buy an engagement ring. On returning to work the next day her boss asked if she was feeling better and asked to see her new ring. He had spotted them in the jewellers buying the ring!!
As the dockyard was closing down, Dad was sent home to the UK via New York and Nova Scotia. Mum and her family sailed back to the UK on the Queen Mary. Mum and Dad were married in Inverkeithing on 12th January 1952. Dad was discharged from the Royal Navy on ill health grounds (3 attacks of Rheumatic Fever) in 1953 and joined civilian life, settling initially in Dunfermline, Fife, UK.
They went on to have 3 children, David (DoB 18/06/1953), Karen (DoB 14/05/58) and myself, Trevor (DoB 01/01/1962). Karen, sadly passed away in 1998 and we lost Mum on 2008 – too early for both of them. Dad was heartbroken having lost both the main ladies in his life, but thanks to his deep faith and the support of his family and friends lived until March 2021 when he passed at the age of 91.
