大象传媒

My mother, Vera Smith was born on John Street, Alfreton on June 8th 1918. Her parents were Maud & John Smith and she had two sisters, May & Joyce. When she left school she worked at John Smedleys at Leen Mills for 8 shillings a week. During the war mum worked as an usherette at the Odeon in Alfreton. She would go with her friends to dances held at the Drill Hall in Alfreton. It was here that she met my dad Victor Leslie Brown, known as Les, he was billeted at the assembly rooms at the back of the George Hotel near to the Drill Hall, having originally come from Spaxton in Somerset. He may have been in the reserves at this time due to an earlier injury he had sustained. My parents started courting and when my dad was sent back to Somerset my mum went with him and stayed with my gran & grandad (dads mum & dad, Annie Beatrice and Archibald Napier Brown )in Spaxton. My parents wanted to get married, but my dad had been previously married and subsequently divorced, however, the office where his divorce papers were kept had been bombed and all evidence was distroyed. So he had to get a divorce again so that he had the paperwork to prove it. My dad had a son from this first marriage, my brother Ray, who still lives in Somerset.

My parents eventually got married at Spaxton Methodist Chapel on 16 August 1947. Dad was demobbed in Somerset on 11 February 1946 and he and mum moved back to Alfreton two years later in 1948 when I was about 3 months old.

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