Thomas O’Hara is my father-in-law, although I never met him as he died some years before Irene and I were together.

Thomas was the youngest son of James and Ann O’Hara (nee Carrigan ), the eighth of their eight children and the only one of their children to be born in the twentieth century. James and Ann were both born in Ireland although it is not known exactly when they moved to Scotland. They were married on 15 April 1885 at St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Glasgow, aged 30 and 24 respectively. According to their marriage certificate only James father, Michael O’Hara, was alive at the time they were married, all their other parents being noted as ‘deceased’.

Thomas was born on 8 December 1903 in Glasgow with five older sisters and two older brothers. When Thomas was just nineteen, in 1923, he travelled to New York from Glasgow to work, boarding the SS Columbia, pictured below. However we were made aware of something else Thomas did when we received his detailed World War II war record. When he joined up in 1941 the form states ‘Enlisted in Kings Own Scottish Borderers as a boy 21 years ago, army number not known. Discharged after only three weeks service – under age.” This would have been in 1920 when Thomas would have been 16.

The journey from Glasgow on 20 October 1923 took 21 days (almost one hundred years later the same sea journey would have been completed in 7 days) and the passenger list tells us that as Thomas left Scotland he had been working as a shop assistant.

Thomas did various work in America and there are various family stories, some which may be apocryphal. He worked as a ‘bell hop’ in an American hotel, we would call him a hotel porter. There was a story that he saw, or assisted, Al Capone whilst doing this work, we will never know for sure.

Thomas did work on the Great Lakes between the USA and Canada and below is a picture of him with some fellow workers, Thomas is third from the left. The vessel they are on is the S.S.W.D. Crawford. I have tried to find out what S.S.W.D stands for but without success. Do you have any idea?

I have been unable to establish exactly when Thomas returned to the UK but by 1939, when the World War II register was taken, he was in Birmingham living at 218 Charles Road and his occupation was recorded as a Dairy Worker. This was probably Slaters Dairy where he met his wife, Mary Pennell. Thomas and Mary were married on 20 July 1940.

Thomas and Mary eventually had four children but soon after the first was born in June 1941 he was enlisted in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (Army Number 10564401). Two years later Thomas was discharged from RAOC, on 7 December 1943, before moving to the Royal Navy the next day. In just under two years with the Royal Navy (Official Number JX696544) Thomas moved between HMS Triphibian, Eagle Brewery and HMS Europa before being discharged on 20 October 1945.

Tom and Mary were really only able to be together with their children after the end of the war and this is a picture from a trip to the seaside, taken around 1947 with their three older children.

After some years Thomas and Mary moved from Yew Tree Lane to live in Newbridge Road, still in Birmingham. Although most of the O’Hara family still lived in Scotland Thomas was in touch with them and below is a picture taken outside their Newbridge Road property. Here we have James, his older brother by thirteen years, Thomas and James, his nephew.

Below is a picture of Thomas accompanying one of his daughters on her wedding day in 1964. He does look very proud.

Sadly Thomas died in January 1969, aged just 65. His widow Mary survived him for another 48 years before she died in 2017 aged almost 101.