Norma Clarke was one of thousands of babies born to foreign servicemen during World War II
Norma Clarke doesn’t remember much about her dad but wishes she did. Norma, 79, was born towards the end of World War II to a Scouse mum and a Norwegian dad. Her dad, a merchant seaman named Magnus Storemark, married her mum in 1944 but left Liverpool a few years after the war ended, never to return.
Magnus remarried in Norway and had several more children. Norma was brought up by her mum in Tuebrook alongside five half-siblings who, she says, “never treated her any different, even though we weren’t full brothers and sisters”.
Speaking to the ECHO earlier this week from Liverpool’s Gustaf Adolf Kyrka – or the Nordic Church, as it’s better known – Norma got emotional talking about her dad, even after all these years. She said: “I always wanted to know more about him but my mother wouldn’t tell me anything. It was always my ambition to meet him but he died in 1972 before I could go over.”
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In the late nineties, Norma plucked up the courage to travel to Norway to meet her Norwegian family near Bergen. However, she got a mixed reception when she got there. She said: “I went to Norway in 1998 and when I got there the family put on a big spread to welcome me. Ivar, was so lovely. As soon as he got there he told me, ‘you’ve got the same eyes as him’. He told me my dad had named his boat ‘Norma’ after me and said he’d never forgotten me.
“But my older sister didn’t want to know me. She really put me off and I felt like I was invading the family. I wasn’t, though – all I wanted to do was meet them.”
Feeling rejected, Norma never returned to Norway after her 1998 trip but she started coming to the Nordic Church around 20 years ago to try to reconnect with her Scandinavian roots. She still has many questions about her dad and what happened to him.
She said: “My mother got married to him in 1944 and that’s as far as I know. I’ve got his picture and the marriage certificate but, if it was possible, I would like to know more about him. I don’t know where he served or what he did during the war.”
At a meeting at the church on Wednesday afternoon, Norma finally got to find out more about her dad. Norwegian historian Dr Bjorn Tore Rosendahl, visiting Liverpool on a trip to coincide with Remembrance week, was able to access his huge database of Norwegian sailors to tell her where Magnus sailed during the war, which ships he served on and the medals he was awarded.
It was an emotional moment for Norma. “It’s just lovely to know, it really is”, she said. “Maybe one day I might be able to go back there and visit his grave.”
According to Dr Rosendahl, on a normal day during the war, there were between 1,500 and 2,000 Norwegian sailors in the city of Liverpool, most of whom would have been sailing on the notoriously dangerous Atlantic convoys, transporting food, raw materials and other vital provisions to Europe from the Americas.
Dr Rosendahl said: “Liverpool was a second home to Norwegian sailors during World War II. They weren’t able to return to Norway while the war was going on because Norway was occupied by the Germans. And Scousers were renowned for how well they received and took care of the Norwegians.
“The people of Liverpool should be proud about how they received the seamen because they took care of them. They went to picnics with the sailors to keep their spirits up. After the war they were received with great warmth here in Liverpool – which was not the case in Norway, sadly.
“Norway did not understand the dangers of sailing on merchant ships during World War II But that was Norway’s most important contribution to the Allied victory. But very few in Norway understood that and they didn’t give the recognition to sailors for that either. But here in Liverpool the sailors felt that recognition, which was really important.”
Soldiers and sailors from all over the world came to Liverpool during the war and many of them left behind children like Norma. According to the Imperial War Museum, between 1942 and 1945, US soldiers fathered more than 22,000 children in Britain. Many of those children suffered discrimination, sometimes because they were raised by single mums, and sometimes because of the colour of their skin.
Around 2,000 babies were born in Britain during the war fathered by black American GIs. Nearly half of them were given to local authority or children’s homes as a result of racial prejudices at the time and the prohibition on inter-racial marriage in the US armed forces. In Liverpool, some of these children were taken in by Nigerian pastor Daniels Ekarte, who ran the African Churches Mission in Toxteth, and created breakfast clubs for poor children in the community.
