大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by ^{About links} on behalf of Gladys Spencer and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

It was October 1940, the week before I was due to be married. London was being pounded by the Blitz. I lived in Clapton with my family, and all of us spent almost every night in the Anderson shelter in the garden. If my fianc茅e was at our house and unable to get back to his home in Stoke Newington because of the bombs, he joined us. He had been exempted from joining the army because of poor eyesight and was working in Essex as a sheet-metal worker, building aircraft. (I was a machinist at a maker of Gentlemen鈥檚 shirts; later I made soldiers鈥� uniforms). We were to be married in Stoke Newington on Saturday, October 26th.

On the Saturday before the wedding the florist phoned, to say that the shop had been bombed during the night and they wouldn鈥檛 be able to do my flowers. That afternoon was spent frantically trying to find another florist. We found one, although they couldn鈥檛 get all roses, as my Mother had wanted, so on the day mixed as many deep red roses as they could get with red carnations.

On the Wednesday, three days before the wedding, a phone call came from the hall we鈥檇 booked for the reception. It had been bombed, and we鈥檇 have to find another location. My Mother-in-Law-to-be offered her house. On Thursday and Friday morning she and her daughters, who were to be my bridesmaids, rushed around buying supplies for the wedding breakfast. The hundred guests we鈥檇 originally catered for were reduced to thirty of our nearest and dearest and somehow we managed to let everyone know about the change of plans.

On the morning of the wedding there was a big bombing raid. I was stuck in the hairdressers, and my young brother, who was to take the wedding cake from our house to Stoke Newington, was in the barbers. I finally got home at 12.30. The wedding was to be at 1 p.m.

Ready at last, I got into the car with my father and we set off for Stoke Newington Church. As we drove down the street we saw my brother walking the other way. I told the driver to stop the car and called to him 鈥淵ou should be at the Church! You鈥檇 better come in the car with us, but sit beside the driver.鈥�

We set off again, and were halfway there when my Father exclaimed, 鈥淚鈥檝e forgotten my hat and gloves!鈥�

We stopped the car and my brother rushed back to the house to collect the missing items.

The vicar met me at the Church gate. 鈥淛erry鈥檚 put a bomb through the organ, 鈥� he said. 鈥淲ill you be married in the Lady Chapel and have the piano instead?鈥�

I agreed to be married in the Lady Chapel, but without the piano 鈥� I鈥檇 have a quiet wedding.

So we were married. I wore white lace, attended by my two married sisters in blue taffeta with matching pillbox hats and beaded handbags. The bridesmaids were dressed in lavender taffeta with floral headdresses and carried bouquets.

After the ceremony we went to my in-law鈥檚 house, to find the tables nicely laid, but no wedding cake. It had been left in Clapton. My brother-in-law went with the driver to collect it 鈥� only to realise that he had no house keys. The driver climbed over the garden wall and got into the house through the unlocked kitchen window. When he went through the house he discovered that the front door had had been wide open all the time 鈥� my young brother, in his haste to get back to the car after picking up the forgotten hat and gloves, had rushed out without shutting it behind him.

All the guests arrived safely and we sat down to a wedding breakfast of ham and salmon, bought with ration coupons, which the family had clubbed together to provide.

My new husband and I left by train for Aldermaston, to be greeted at the station with the words 鈥淗urry up! Hurry up! The air-raid sirens are going!鈥�

The all-clear sounded as we got the hotel, and we had three lovely days honeymoon in beautiful late October weather; the start of forty happy years of marriage.

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