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I was born 14-1-28 and was living in Leyton, E10. My sister Joyce, got married on 9-7-44 to Fred, a Chief Petty Officer. My Mother and myself gave Joyce our clothing coupons to get her wedding outfit. I was her bridesmaid and borrowed my cousins long dress as I did not own one myself. Fred’s mother and her friends lived at Lowestoft and came to Leyton for the day. After the guests had left, we were waiting for the wedding car when a V1 dropped quite near to us (Joyce, Dad and myself). Joyce held her bouquet lost all the flowers, and we tried to do the best for her. After the service, we went outside the church for the photographs. The children from Lowestoft were frightened because they dropped quite near, so in the photos they were almost crying.

When Joyce, Fred, my mother and myself got home, we found the soot had come down the chimney — my mother took the tablecloth off and shook it and put it back on the table other side up. But it seemed hopeless to try and clean everything up so we opened a tin of corned beef, which was on coupons and other things we managed to get, Joyce, Fred and his mother and friends left to go back to Lowestoft. When they got to Leyton Station there was quite a lot of trouble on the steam train — eventually they arrived at Liverpool Street station and got on the train to Lowestoft, arriving about midnight. Fred had to leave at 5 in the morning to go back to the ship — he only had a 48 hour pass to get married. His ship went to the Pacific and he did not get back for quite a while. Fred has quite a lot of things he could tell you. He was last one on one of his ships and he was on the SOS calling for help. END

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