Geoff Dancer and Doris Dancer
Geoff Dancer and Doris Dancer, who used to live in Ottawa, Canada, have been denied more than £40,000 of their pension over the past 20 years.
Geoff, who was born in the UK in 1921, met Doris, his wife of 69 years when they were both stationed at the Air Ministry Central in Leighton Buzzard at the beginning of the war. They were employed as teleprinter operators, communicating coded information around the country. Serving in the RAF from 1939 to 1948, Geoff was assigned for two years to India, where he helped establish the first ever radio teleprinter link between Whitehall and Delhi.
After the war Geoff and Doris moved to Salhouse to start a family and had a daughter Judy and a son Richard. Doris worked part time as a clerical assistant at her daughter’s school, while Geoff became a social worker for Norfolk County Council. Judy remembers how they had no car so her dad used to bicycle miles and miles between Norwich, Wroxham and all the schools he was involved with.
In the 60’s Judy moved to Canada, intending to stay for one year, but after returning to England she missed the wide open spaces of Canada and decided to return to start a life there. Looking back, she recalls:
“I’ll never forget my Mum, burying her face in a pillow as I said good-bye. Then I sobbed uncontrollably all the way to the docks at Liverpool where I boarded the Empress of Canada ship!”
After a family holiday to Canada a couple of years later, Judy’s brother Richard also decided to emigrate to Canada.
“Poor Mum.” Judy says, “All she wanted was to be near her ‘kids’! She couldn’t wait to move over here to be near to us.”
Having worked in the UK for 44 years, Geoff retired at the age of 60 and he and Doris were finally able to move to Canada to join their children.