大象传媒

It was August 1944, Tom and I met on a train, he was on a weekend's leave going to his home in Leicester and I was going to my grandmother's for a week's holiday in Manchester.
My mother must have had a small fit when she saw me get into the compartment with a whole group of airmen, I was only 17. We all got chatting like you did, it was like that in the war, you didn't know what would happen one day to the next.
Tom got off at Leicester but some of his colleagues stayed on and one of them said, he'd like to meet me. I gave them my grandmother's address. By Tuesday I had a letter from Tom and we arranged for him to meet me off the train in Bedford the following Saturday.
I left my poor mother waiting or me at the station- I suppose I got carried away and just forgot that she was meeting me as well. We met for our first real date on Bank holiday Monday- we went for a walk down the Embankment in Bedford- that's all we could afford, which was the same as most young couples in those days. Tom had to catch his bus back to Henlow at 9.45 so no late nights for us. Not long after his unit were posted to Lincoln and we continued our courtship by mail and of course the odd weekend when he was on leave, when he would stay at my parents home.
By Christmas we were engaged, December 16th 1944 to be exact. Then he recieved his orders that he was being posted abroad so we decided to get married. The date was set the 7th of May 1945 at 14.00 at Russell Parlc Baptist Church.
At our reception at Kish's Cafe on the corner of Wellington St and the Broadway, Bedford. I don't remember much about what we had to eat but I remember the neighbours clubbed in to make our wedding cake. The wedding dress was a collection of coupons which everybody collected together and the dress was bought from John Lewis in Leicester for the grand sum of 拢16, the dress was made with plain heavy white satin. Around 4 o'clock it came over on the radio the newscaster announced that "hostilities had ceased", making me the 'last wartime bride'.
Along with our wedding telegrams came one for Tom to return to his unit immediately.
We had to cancel our plans for our honeymoon in the Matlock Derbs. I found my self without my new husband. So the next day I was celebrating around town with everyone else along the river. There was a great atmospere.
We have 4 children, 11 grandchildren and 4 grandchildren.

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