大象传媒

This story was submitted to People's War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Eileen Hunt and has been added to the site with her permission. Eileen Hunt fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was working for Gruberts in Kings Cross. It was a furriers. We were making double fur coats for babies, children, and adults for the Red Cross that were being shipped to Russia by the merchant navy. The fur was musquash - it's very thick.

I was due to get married on Saturday 11 May 1940. On the previous Friday,the 10th May we finished work at the end of the day and somebody from work gave me a bouquet of Lily of the Valley flowers, which are my favourite flowers.

I went to King Cross station to meet my fiance who was in the RAF. But when I got there the station was closed and it was swarming with police and soldiers. No one was allowed in or out. A policeman told me that I wasn't going to get married because all leave had just been cancelled. The Low Countries had been invaded.

I was heartbroken. And I had to quickly cancel everything: the church and the registrar, flowers, car everything.

But unknown to me my brother-in-law and brother kidnapped my fiance and hid him in the bottom of a van owned by a friend of my dad's. They brought him from Cambridgeshire to London under a blanket all the way to Deacon Street where he lived.

I had to contact the priest because I had cancelled the wedding. He told me that if I could get to the church by 6pm on the 11th he would still marry us. Then, I had to get dressed up and eventually got to the church. The Catholic priest married us. After the ceremony, he said the marriage is not legal as we hadn't had a registrar witness the wedding. So one of the congregation nipped out of the church and found the registrar. We had a second marriage in the Lady's Chapel as the priest had us repeat our vows in front of the registrar!

After the wedding we had a reception in my sister's house. Then Victor managed to get a train to Cambridge without any bother. At the camp, there was another airman called Hunt so Vicotr signed in as him. During roll call his friends had put pillows in his bed so that it was not noticed that he was missing. He was very lucky. He would have been up on a charge otherwise! I had to wait for a month until I could see him again after the wedding.

We were both very lucky to get married that day. Several weddings were scheduled, but we were the only ones to manage it. The military police came for some of the others and one couple was stopped as they were about to enter the church.

We had four children and were married for 49 years so Hitler didn't stop our wedding!

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