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This story has been submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from Lincoln CSV Action Desk on behalf of Joyce Hampshire and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Hampshire fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I left school in 1939 and my father registered me with an employment agency in the Strand, London. We lived in Bromley Kent a dormitory town, 10 miles out of London and it was very exciting going to London, I went for an interview at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and it was agreed that I could start work there in the Restaurant office, I would be expected to type menu’s each day and other clerical jobs and I was to start after our week’s family holiday.

We had an enjoyable holiday, my parents and my three younger sisters. We stayed in Shoeburyness, in a holiday chalet. All the time we were on the beach, planes were soaring overhead, practising for the war to come.

Before I could begin the job, war was declared, and all Museums were closed for the duration! What to do now? After the shock and realisation that life would carry on as usual,(for awhile anyway) it was decided that I should try to find employment, locally. I started a job with a Pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome, Park Langley just a 15 minute cycle ride away. I started in the office of their Packing Dept. I was quite happy there , although the cycle ride during winter time was a little hazardous, snow was never cleared from the roads.

My parents were given the choice of a ‘Morrison’ or an ‘Anderson’ shelter. A ‘Morrison’ was a steel table to keep in the house, to take cover under,and the Anderson was a corregated hut buried in the ground at the bottom of the garden , my parents opted for the ‘hole in the ground’, why I will never know, because when the time came and we needed to take cover my father refused to set foot into it, one could’nt blame him it was horrid, when the four of us slept in it ,the sides ran with condensation . My sisters managed to get some sleep when a raid was on, but my mother was so scared she made me very aware of the planes dronning overhead, on their way to the London area , of course many German planes did not succeed, thanks to the Artillery around our streets aiming to stop as many as possible. Unfortunatly , the planes so often unloaded their bombs and turned tail. My mother would say to me, if we hear the whistle of the bomb it has passed us by!

A lady who worked at ‘Burroughs ‘suggested I ought to apply for a job in one of the Government Departments, she had a niece who was with the Ministry of Supply in London and more clerical staff was needed, so with her help I applied, and soon started working at Bush House ,S.W.Wing in the Strand just opposite to Somerset House. The Department was the Directorate of ‘ Royal Engineers,’ The Director was a Mr.R.A.Riddles, on loan from t h e L,M.S. Railway, most of the Senior staff.,were loaned from the Railway and Engineering Companies. there were alsoquite a number of Royal Engineer Officers also. A Brigadier Fowle, being their Senior. The man I worked for was, the P.A. to Mr. Riddles, there were four of us in the PA’s office an Assistant, the Director’s Secretary, and myself . I had to do the filing, and some clerical work, one task was to find out each morning where all the important members of the Department would be during the day, and enter into a book so that Mr.Riddles knew where his staff would be and with whom, some were out seeing Suppliers and other Government Departments, and from the Drawing Office one or two would be flying from Farnborough, to design ‘camouflage’ for important buildings and factories, they would take photographs from the air and then design a camouflage to be painted on the roofs to resemble woods, trees anything to disguise their real use.

Christmas 1943 I was to meet my future husband, Ron. My parents invited some friends to our house Ron being included, he was a Sgt. With the Royal Artillery, based in Beckenham nearby. I was to see him again when everyone got together to party at a neighbours house, there were no interruptions from the enemy , but I had to leave the party and go back to the office to do my share of fire-watch. I had volunteered to do fire-watching and small teams of us would take our turn to keep an eye on the building during night-time, we would be expected to look for incendiary bombs, and use a stirrup pump if necessary, but I was never required to do this . We had to sleep there on camp beds and go for breakfast in the canteen in Somerset House, Our Ministry passes allowed us entry.

We continued to see each other when possible and as preparations were going on for ‘D Day’ , we felt very committed to each other and decided just getting engaged , was not enough and felt we would really like to be married, of course this depended on a lot of co-operation from our families, my Mother looked very worried and did not like the idea of me marrying a ‘foreigner’., it was now May and I had only known him since Christmas , and he was a Yorkshireman , he came from ‘up North’ , where, in my Mothere’s eyes they were all ‘foreigners’. She liked him really, but considered him a bit ‘out-spoken’ and not the sort of person she expected for a son-in-law. Ron’s Dad was also in the Army and stationed at Catterick, he was an ‘old soldier’ and had served in the 1st.world war, joined at ‘ 18’ served from 1914 to 1918 . As one would imagine he was quite philosophical about it , but his Mother , who lived in the family home in Rotherham with their two youngeer sons, no doubt felt like my Mother, and of course she would lose an army allowance Ron made to her also.

The big day was arranged for 20th May, there was a lot to be done, but everyone rallied round. The Secretary at the office offered to lend me her beautiful wedding dress, my sister Shirley, who worked at Norman Hartnell’s the Queen ‘s dress-maker, agreed to make the bridesmaid’s dresses with my help. We realised we had not enough clothing coupons between us to buy the material needed, so we set of with near empty coupons books and visited a stall in Petticoat Lane, London. We returned home with some green taffetta with a satin spot , it was the best we could get, considering we were at the mercy of the stall holder., but we both liked it and Shirley thought it would make up alright.

Green dresses! This is when the superstions started, green supposedly unlucky. ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’ and the last one, I remember was ‘Marry in May, when the honey-bees flit, strangers, around your table will sit. I preferred to think about the words to a ‘pop’ song , that was the rage at Christmas when Ron and I first met . It was an Andrew sisters song from America called ‘Apple Blossom Time’ ‘Ill be with you in Apple Blossom Time, I’ll be with you to change your name to mine, One day in May, I’ll come and say ‘ Happy the bride the sun shines on today ‘ etc. and so it did come true. As Ron said in 2004 when we celebrated our wedding anniversary, in London, with our three sons, eight grand children and families ‘ 60 DIAMOND YEARS- A FEW TEARS - BUT MANY MORE SMILES’

The 20th May was a very difficult time to get married, all leave was stopped and Ron had to apply for a‘ special leave pass’ and a Major General had to sign it! Ron’s Dad was refused leave and this was very upsetting for his Mother and we thought a veteran soldier should have been treated more compassionately. Ron’s friends from the Sgts. Mess were allowed to attend , and one of them was to be the ‘best We were married in St.George’s Church, Beckenham, and the Padre from the R.A. unit , who also came from Rotherham, took the service. The reception was held at our village hall with local caterers. Photographs were taken and Ron’s Mother must have felt very unhappy not to have her husband beside her on their eldest son’s special day, all of the wedding party must have felt like ‘foreigners’ to her , her first time on a visit out of Yorshire.

We decided as we only had a week for a ‘honeymoon’ we should spend some of it in Rotherham. A friend loaned us her house, for the week-end, her husband was working away, and she stayed with a friend. We set off on the train for Sheffield , the train was packed and we had to stand most of the way, and then we went by tram to Rotherham. I had never been on a tram before!

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