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My name is Kathleen Kendrick. I was born in 1922, so that makes me 84 in April.
I was nursing at the Belfast City Hospital at the start of the war. And my boyfriend was in the army. We met when my sister showed him a photograph of me, and he said, ‘When she comes home, will you introduce us?’ So she said ‘Yes’. He- Harold Kendrick- was in the 53rd Welsh. He was born and bred in Caergwrle, near Wrexham. One of 11. And four brothers in the forces all came back. My sister met him, because she was living with my mother, and the soldiers used to go past the house to go to the canteen, and my grandfather was living then, and he used to say ‘They are somebody’s sons. Bring them in and give them a cup of tea.’ He had five sons in the First World War, so that’s why he said that. So that’s how it was. And my sister had a postcard of me, and she showed him that. So we met, and we started courting, seeing each other, especially on a Sunday, when he used to come for tea, and then he was posted over here. While he was in the army, I went to Meadowslea Hospital in Penyffordd. Dr Darling was the Doctor at the time. And he asked me whether I’d go to Penyffordd, or the Maelor Hospital in Wrexham. He said ‘If you go to Penyffordd, you can go home, but if you go to the Maelor, you’ve got to sleep in.’ So I chose Meadowslea.
I got engaged on January 5th 1940. Christmas Day, I must emphasise that, I’ve got it inside my ring.. we were married on Christmas Day, 1942, at one o clock, in my own church. The reason the rector did that was because we were all good church people, and he knew us personally.
We only had four days honeymoon. We came over to Caergwrle in 1943, and went to work in Meadowslea Hospital. I went to live with Harold’s family, to his sister’s. Harold was in the army, going through France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland.
While he was in Germany, he got a message to take to his commanding officer, and he was riding a motorbike to get there. All of a sudden, there was.. a bomb or something had fallen, and quite a few people were killed. But he carried on. And for that, he got the military medal for being able to despatch the message to his commanding officer. He had a letter from King George VI. The letter was apologising that he couldn’t give him the medal in person, and congratulating him for what he’d done. Field Marshall Lord Montgomery he sent them with the medal. The King had poor health.
My husband’s wish was that the medal should be kept in the Kendrick family. So that means that my son has the medal, and the other medals, and then they will be passed on to his eldest son.
Meadowslea was a sanatorium when I worked there in 1943. I stayed there until Harold came out of the army. He was promised that his job would be there for him when he came out. So he went back to his job at Shotton Steelworks, after about a fortnight off. And I packed up my job at Meadowslea, to try and get a home together. And that’s what I did.
Eventually, they all came home, those who could. And we lived with his sister, until we had a home of our own.

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