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This story was submitted to the People's War web site by a volunteer from Age Concern Dorchester on behalf of Mrs Langrish and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Langrish fully understands the site's terms and conditions

The last war broke out on my 15th birthday. I had been riding my pony across Dartmoor and when I came home, my grandmother gave me the news, adding ‘you are too young for it to have any effect on you.’ How wrong she was. We lived on the outskirts of Plymouth and I decided, against my parents wishes, that I should not return to school, but get a job, so allowing someone of the older generation to take part in an active war effort.
I’ll never forget walking, or rather stumbling, through the rubble of Plymouth City Centre after the Blitz that left the city in ruins — the smell was appalling. The office I worked for was completely destroyed, so I made my way home, completely shattered. After the first air raid sirens sounded, early on in the war years, we had a shelter put underground in our garden — with so many disturbed nights due to the continuing air raids after the fall of France to the invading Germans. I slept down in the shelter under not enviable conditions; damp and cold.
After the chaos was sorted out, my office was evacuated to the outskirts of Roborough. I walked there and back each day, some 3 miles each way — very difficult in the blackout conditions of those dreadful days. After the Blitz of the city we were without gas and electricity for some weeks. My mother managed to cook on our one open fire. I can remember feeling in a daze with tiredness. During the evening and night raids, the throb of the aircraft going over and the gunfire and the sky lit up with searchlights was very frightening. The general opinion was that if you could hear the bombs falling they were not for you that time! We were lucky in only having unexploded mombs by our house and were evacuated to the local pub while the detonators were removed.
In 1941 I met and married my husband, John, who had come down from the Manchester area to join the Navy — no white weddings in those days; borrowed coupons from friends and relatives enabled me to buy my blue wedding outfit (which I also wore to travel to our 2-day honeymoon, spent at Newton Ferrers, still within air-raid siren distance of Plymouth, hence worrying if my family would still be there when we returned). The cake, (a wartime recipe) my outfit and such food that we were able to get together. We spent the night down the air raid shelter and we were hoping that we would all be there for the wedding the next day and that the church would not suffer any damage.
We were extremely lucky to live through those dreadful times. My husband and I celebrated our diamond wedding anniversary in October 2001 and are hoping to celebrate our 63rd this October. I have now celebrated my 80th birthday and my husband his 85th.

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