Barbara Cass-Beggs

Meet the Character Guest Blog by Rosemary Cass-Beggs Burstall

by Thomas Sanger • Guest Blog Post, Interviews, SS Athenia • Leave a Comment

Note: Rosemary Cass-Beggs was three years old when she boarded the British passenger liner Athenia Sept. 2, 1939, with her parents, Barbara and David Cass-Beggs. When their ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat (the central event in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning), Rosemary’s parents put her on one of the first lifeboats to leave the ship, even though there was no room for them in the boat. They expected Athenia to sink at any moment and wanted to make sure their daughter survived. Following are Rosemary’s memories of these events.

I am kneeling on a bench near the pointed end of the boat crying, “Mum-mee!” at intervals. What worried me most was that I was wearing my pajama top and nothing else. I don’t remember being cold or wet, simply embarrassed. Behind me, sitting round the edges of the boat were a lot of other people, all very silent. Read More

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs, A Life in Music, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia • Leave a Comment

Barbara Cass-Beggs was 34 years old when she boarded Athenia in Liverpool on the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1939, with her husband, David, and 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary. In a little more than 24 hours, Barbara and David would become separated from their daughter when a German U-boat torpedoed their ship, the central event in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning.
Nothing in Barbara’s life prior to boarding Athenia could have prepared her for the hardships she was about to endure or the terrible anxiety of separation from her daughter.

Barbara Cass was born in Nottingham, England, the younger of two daughters. Her father, Bingley Cass, a Church of England minister, moved the family frequently as he sought positions of greater responsibility in churches with ever larger congregations. Read More

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs An Accomplished Life, Part 3

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

The journey had begun innocently enough. Barbara Cass-Beggs and her husband, David, decided to go to Canada for a year while he served as a guest lecturer in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. They sailed with their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, aboard Athenia from Liverpool, England, Sept. 2, 1939. The next day, Great Britain and Germany declared war, and less than ten hours later, a German U-boat torpedoed Athenia (see Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 2, Nov. 15, 2014).

Separated from Rosemary while abandoning ship, Barbara and David spent an anxious three weeks before reuniting with their daughter in Toronto. They gave no thought of returning to England during the remainder of the war, and found Canada’s more egalitarian society so much to their liking that they remained for another six years after the war. During this period both their careers began to blossom. Read More

Passenger list for Athenia’s voyage from Glasgow to Canada, Sept. 2, 1938

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

A little more than 24 hours after coming aboard the British passenger liner Athenia, Barbara Cass-Beggs came face to face with the war she hoped she would never see. Barbara, her husband David, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, were on their way to Canada where David would lecture in electrical engineering for a year at the University of Toronto. (See blog “Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 1,” Nov. 1, 2014.)

It had already been a difficult voyage, with both Barbara and David feeling the effects of sea-sickness. They had gone to bed early the evening of Sept. 3, 1939, when a torpedo from a German U-boat slammed into Athenia’s port side. The explosion crippled the engines and shut down the electrical system, plunging the ship into darkness.
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Liverpool’s Mersey River

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs An Accomplished Life, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Barbara Cass-Beggs expected to spend a year in Canada with her husband, David, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, when they boarded Athenia in Liverpool on the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1939. David had accepted a position for the coming academic year to lecture on electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, and Barbara saw it as an opportunity to test the waters of Canada’s egalitarian society. They planned to return home to Oxford, England, when the year ended, but World War 2 would change all that.

The threat of war seemed a long way off when Barbara and David initially planned to go to Canada. As tensions on the Continent mounted in the summer of 1939, they had second thoughts, but resolved to go anyway, in part to escape the rigid class distinctions of Great Britain.
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