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This story has been added by Paula Thompson a CSV volunteer for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Southern Counties radio on behalf of Dorothy Parker and has been added to the site with her permission. Dorothy fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

We belonged to a Methodist Church where we had a thriving Sunday School, about 500 children, also a very successful Girl’s Life Brigade (GLB) and Boy’s Brigade (BB). It was great when the teenagers paired off.

Then came the War — I can’t recall how many weddings there were. I was lucky in having a Mum who was a great cook and organizer, and a dad who had been a chef (on Canadian Pacific Railway) and was always called on at ‘do’s’ to carve the meat as he could always slice it thinner than anyone!

So when a wedding was in the offing, Mum and her pal Mrs. Moore used to organize the reception — friends and relatives of the happy couple would beg for tins of fruit, sugar etc. from relatives in Canada, USA. Everyone concerned would save coupons and points for months then the best cooks would produce sausage rolls trifles etc. The meat ration was usually one shilling per week but when joints were scarce, it used to be ten-pence meat and two- pence corned beef. (My sister-in-law’s dad was a butcher and a VERY helpful one shhh!)

Bakeries had excellent artificial wedding cakes which they would lend and there might be a sponge cake or a fruit cake hidden underneath. Friends were willing to lend cutlery with different cotton tied round to identify them. I was often waitress. Mum used to charge 1/3d a head for their services which went to Church funds.

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