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My husband and I got married 60 years ago on the 30th of December 1944. It was my husband’s 21st birthday on that day too. We should have been married the previous June, but the events of the war prevented it. Pat was in the Royal Navy then, servicing as a gunner on board the merchant navy vessels. This division was called the D.E.M.S (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships), so you could say he was one of the D.E.M’.

By the time June arrived, we were all feeling very anxious and concerned about him because there had been no mail from him for some time. Eventually the news broke ‘Our forces had invaded France’. We then knew why he hadn’t come home, and our fears grew as the weeks went by and still no news from him. Letters home were banned prior to the Normandy landings. When eventually he did come home, we learned that he had been on a ship in the English Channel during the invasion, supplying munitions to our invading forces and later moving on to the American Beach heads to do the same job there.

I was not exactly waiting at the church, so to speak, but we did have everything ready for the wedding in June!! My wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses hung in the wardrobe covered with a sheet. The cake had been made. Mother was concerned that the icing might turn yellow! She called it a ‘utility’ cake; the ingredients being mostly donated from family and friends and, I think, a little from the black market. However, she packed it in a large biscuit tin, covered it with tissue paper and sealed the lid with a sticking plaster. It was a beautiful on the day, not the least tinge of yellow to be seen!

Pat eventually arrived home a few days before Christmas. I happened to be on the night shift at the Automatic telephone Company, in Edge Lane. He came to the factory to collect me, and I was granted passionate leave and given permission to leave right away. Word had gone round the shop floor and as I left everyone hammered on the machines with spanners and tools; the noise was deafening.

Wedding arrangements were hurriedly made and we were married at St. Teresa’s Church in Norris Green, at 3pm on a very cold and misty day. The ground was covered with frozen snow and ice that had been around for days. We had two cars, one each from different garages. Our best man was a casual acquaintance; all our best friends were away. A friend took a couple of photographs in his home three days after the wedding. The reception was in my home, with kind neighbours helping out. It was a lovely happy day with the celebrations lasting nearly all night. We had two days on our own at my Aunt’s house, before pat was reported back to his ship. I didn’t see him again after that, until the war ended in 1946. Looking back, it seems like only yesterday.

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