Former Dutch soldier Jaap Romijn hopes to meet Patricia Kiddell again

Forces

Former Dutch soldier Jaap Romijn hopes to meet Patricia Kiddell again

Anonymous 04/09/2003, 3:13 PM
It was 1946, the war was over and people were beginning to have a good time once more.

That was when young Dutch soldier Jaap Romijn came over to Norfolk and struck up a friendship with a young English girl named Patricia Kiddell.

Now he’d love to get in contact once more.

Brigitta van Leewen-Romijn, from Rijswijk in the Netherlands, is appealing on her dad’s behalf.

She takes up the story: “My father met the lady in 1946. He was with the RAF in Langham for technical training for the Dutch army.

“When he had just arrived, people told him to visit Norwich for dancing. At the local market he met Patricia and a friend, and she invited him and his friend to her house.

“During the year he was in Langham, he visited her and her father almost every weekend and had a great time. At that time she lived in Knowsley Road.”

Patricia, who was born in Norwich in 1929, married George Blake in 1950 and she and Jaap remained pen-pals.

“After a while she moved again and my father lost the number of her house so the letters and cards didn’t reach her any more.

“In 1973, I went with my parents to Norwich to search for her, but we didn’t succeed. We went to churches, to City Hall and also to the street where she lived, but nobody knew her.

“For all those years my father told us he would like very much to meet her again, so now I’m trying to make his wish come true.”

Brigitta has had help from a woman who is researching the Kiddell family tree and has learned a little more about Patricia.

“I know her husband died and I think she has a son called Stephen, born in 1966.

“She lived from 1953 until 1970 at 17 Rider Haggard Road, and from 1971 to 1972 at 41 Colls Road, Norwich. I know she has an older sister, Violet, who married an American soldier.”

Are you Patricia, or do you know her? If you can help, please give me a call, drop me an e-mail at Derek.James@archant.co.uk or write to me at Evening News, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich NR1 1RE