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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Daniel Jones for GMR Actiondesk on behalf of Mrs Dorothy Cartwright and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

I went to the Church Well Dance at St. George’s, 1/9d, to go in. I was 17 years old, and I’d never seen a uniform, and in walked the most gorgeous, very handsome, blond RAF man, and then they played the Paul Jones dance. And when the music stopped, he was right up to me, and we danced.

He was in the Regiment RAF stationed at Catterick an engineer on maintaining and serving spitfires, later became a pilot. After the dance, he asked me if he could walk me home. I was dressed in a full skirt, with a white blouse, with bows, and bows in my hair. So we walked home in the blackout. I could hardly find the way. When we arrived at my road, he gave me a peck on the cheek, and asked if he could see me the next day.

I went into my mother and told her I’d met this gorgeous boy, and I was in love — love at first sight. Then we wrote to each other, and after three years we married in 1942.

There were coupons, so I borrowed a wedding dress and veil, and had French gardenias in my hair. We married at the church where we met, and had the reception at the Dokeport Crescent. The wedding cake was covered in white cardboard, as there was no icing.

Because leave could be cancelled at any time, we had three days at Shrewsbury, then he went back. Then he was posted to Cosford at his RAF station, and we lived in a tiny cottage nearby, we were so very happy. He worked so hard round the clock seeing that the RAF was serviced to fly.

Then he was posted to Ireland, I joined him there, and the journey over was terrifying, as there were German submarines in the sea. I never I thought I’d make it, but when I landed and saw him waiting for me in his RAF uniform, so handsome and so in love, it was worth it. We lived in a very primitive cottage.

On VE night the Irish women were not very nice to us. So we had to stay in, they burnt things, and were generally very unpleasant.

He came out of the RAF as I was expecting our first child who was born at Adlington Hall, which had been lent to the forces to use as a maternity hospital for the forces’ wives. That was 1945. He came out of the RAF in October and went into business. Then he retired to the Lake District at 36 years of such happy married life.

We went to a dance in the Church Hall in the place where we lived, and we were dancing, and he died there on the dance floor. So we met while we were dancing, and he died when we were dancing... But we were so very happy.

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