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Introduction

This article supplements two previous articles submitted on behalf of Mrs Mary Ritson (née Casson) (Article Reference Ids: A3727857 and A3723257) from Whitehaven, Cumberland (now Cumbria). During the war, Mary had many varied experiences. Some of the memories Mary has are of happy events and, being wartime, some of them are of sad events.

One of the happiest days of Mary’s life was the day she married Tom Ritson from Scilly Banks, Cumbria in August 1941. Unfortunately Tom passed away in April 2003, but they shared many happy years together.

On 3 August 2005 it was Mary’s 90th birthday. A few days earlier, I made a special visit to the Cumbria County Archives to see if I could find any references about Mary and Tom’s wedding in the local newspaper section. I did indeed find that ‘The Whitehaven News’ edition of Thursday 28 August 1941 included a short item about Mary and Tom’s wedding day the previous Saturday.

Wedding announcement

The first short item about Mary and Tom’s wedding in ‘The Whitehaven News’ is the announcement in the ‘Births, Marriages and Deaths’ section of the ‘News’ (page 5), which reads:

RITSON - CASSON
‘On August 23 1941, at St Begh’s Church, Whitehaven, by the Rev. Father Jackson, Thomas, eldest son of Mr and Mrs T. Ritson, Scilly Banks, to Mary Ellen, elder daughter of Mr and Mrs D. Casson, Fleswick Avenue, Woodhouse.’
(Included with permission of ‘The Whitehaven News’).

For this kind of wedding announcement in the newspaper, the parents of one of the happy couple would write it out and pay for it. Although the original item handed in to the ‘News’ office had to be authenticated with the name and address of the sender, unfortunately the original article with this information on no longer exists.

According to ‘The Whitehaven News’ staff I spoke with in 2005, most of the original documents and photographs from before 1982 were destroyed in a flood. However, I do know that the cost of inserting the item was 2 Shillings for 20 words, plus 1d for each word thereafter. So, with a length of 41 words, Mary and Tom’s wedding announcement would have cost 3/9d in old money, or approximately 19p in decimal currency!

‘Whitehaven Wedding’ feature

In addition to the above announcement there is a short article on page 2 of the ‘News’ that actually gives a little more information about the wedding, some of which I had never heard before. The item on Mary and Tom’s wedding is inserted between the forthcoming films to be shown at the Castle Cinema, Egremont and the Hound Trailing fixtures. If this is of interest to anyone, these are the films that were soon to be shown at the Castle Cinema: ‘The Return of Frank James’ with Henry Fonda, ‘Behind The Door’ with Boris Karloff and ‘The Lady In Question’ with Brian Aherne and Rita Hayworth.

The first part of the article about Mary and Tom’s wedding is almost the same as the wedding announcement mentioned above. The article then says that Mary was ‘given away’ by her father, David Casson, and that she was wearing a ‘floral dress with blue edge-to-edge coat and hat and shoes to tone’.

For a bouquet, Mary carried a spray of red roses. According to the newspaper article, Mary’s Bridesmaid was one of her sisters, Miss Evelyn Casson (later to become Mrs Evelyn Mills). For the wedding, Evelyn is recorded as wearing a floral dress, with a blue coat, hat and shoes to tone. Evelyn’s bouquet was a spray of sweet peas. I also know that in addition to Evelyn being a bridesmaid, one of Mary’s friends, Mrs Martha Kevin, acted as a Maid of Honour, but this is not mentioned in the 1941 newspaper item. As seemed to be the case with newspaper articles about weddings at the time, there is nothing about what the bridegroom was wearing!

So far as I am aware there is only one photograph of Mary and Tom’s wedding, but I have never seen it. Thus, I have been unable to check the photograph to see what Tom was wearing on his wedding day. Tom would, of course, have worn his best suit. Tom’s youngest brother Joe Ritson was the Best Man because the second oldest brother Ronald was away from home serving in the Army. I think Joe would also have worn his best suit as well. Joe Ritson, who was my father, was not quite 18 years old at the time of Mary and Tom’s wedding.

According to the newspaper article, the ‘buttonholes’ of the Bridegroom and Best Man, plus the Bridesmaid’s bouquet were a gift from Mr Entwistle. Reading the newspaper article in the Cumbria County Archives office was the first time I had ever heard of a Mr Entwistle. I have asked other relatives and friends who Mr Entwistle was. None of those I have asked know who Mr Entwistle was, including Mary. If Mr Entwistle had lived at Scilly Banks or Woodhouse, I feel at least one of the people I asked would have remembered him. Consequently, my guess is that Mr Entwistle may have been an acquaintance of Tom’s: either a work colleague at Walkmill Colliery, Moresby Parks or a fellow member of one of the organisations Tom was involved with at the time, such as the St John’s Ambulance or Moresby Home Guard. Nevertheless, whoever Mr Entwistle was it was a fine gesture by him to gift the buttonholes and flowers for the wedding. I am pleased to recognise the gesture in this account.

The newspaper article also mentions that the Tom presented Evelyn with a gold signet ring on the day of the wedding. Miss Margaret Casson, Mary’s niece, (later to be Mrs Margaret Hogg) presented the Bride with a silver horseshoe as the newly married happy couple left the church. Margaret is the daughter of Mary’s brother John and his wife, also called Mary.

Mary’s parents, David and Mary Ellen Casson, held a reception for over 60 guests at their home, 75 Fleswick Avenue, Woodhouse, Whitehaven. This was a semi-detached house with basically only a living room and ‘back kitchen’ on the ground floor. Looking back at there being 60 guests in this type of house, it would seem difficult to accommodate everyone.

Although I don’t have a guest list of everyone who attended Mary and Tom’s wedding, the guests would have included those family members able to attend, close friends and neighbours. So, somehow all the guests were welcomed into the house on Fleswick Avenue and joined in the celebrations of this happy event. Everyone would chip in with something from the little they had to help the bride and groom on this important day. The newspaper article records Mary and Tom received a large number of presents.

With it being a wartime wedding, some close family members of the bride and groom did not attend the wedding. As mentioned above, Tom’s brother Ronald was serving in the Army and did not go to the wedding. Tom’s father, also known as Tom, did not go to the wedding either. As a stonemason, he used to work away from home a lot and I think that this is the likely reason for being absent at Mary and Tom’s wedding. Tom’s mother Agnes did attend the wedding. Some of Mary’s brothers did not go to the wedding because they were serving in the Forces: this would have been John, George, Robert and David. Mary's parents and her other brothers and sisters attended the wedding so far as I know. It may seem peculiar looking back at events many years later, but duty to the national war effort, whether in the Services or on the Home Front, came before attending the wedding of a close family member! Yet, in the context of wartime it was not unusual for this to happen.

Although I am not exactly sure of everything that took place at the reception, everyone would have received something to eat and they would all have joined in the happy event. Some years ago, I can remember my father Joe Ritson, who was Best Man at the wedding, saying that he sang a couple of songs at Mary and Tom’s wedding. Unfortunately, at the time he mentioned this I did not ask him anything else about the reception. Nevertheless, I feel that some of the other guests must also have also sung songs and everyone would have had a memorable time.

Conclusion

I would like to dedicate this article to Mary on the occasion of her 90th birthday, and to the happy memories of the years married to Tom. Mary and Tom’s wedding in August 1941 was a happy day that was just the beginning of many happy years they spent together raising a family. In 2005, Mary’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and other family members had a get-together to mark Mary’s special birthday. It was another happy day for Mary spent in the company of many of her relatives.

One of the visitors to see Mary on the morning of her birthday was her niece Margaret Hogg (née Casson). As explained above, Margaret was the little girl who presented Mary with a silver horseshoe as Mary was leaving the church with Tom after the marriage ceremony. The happy memories of the war years live on long after the event! Hopefully, this article contributes, even if only in a small way, to ensure at least some of the good memories that people have had of the war years will be remembered in the future.

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