大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Northumberland on behalf of Mrs. Emma Bell (nee Molyneux). Mrs. Bell fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions, and the story has been added to the site with her permission.

When she was seventeen or eighteen years old, Emma Molyneux, as she then was, started work as a machinist in a factory making uniforms for the Army and Air Force. The factory was located at Pelaw Co-operative Building in County Durham.

Emma鈥檚 job was to make trousers to the stage of them being ready to press. Before passing them on, she often put a message into one of the pockets, which read:
鈥淚f married, pass me by,
If single, please reply鈥�

During the course of the war Emma received three replies although, now, she can only remember the name of one of the men who took the trouble to do so. She never met any of them but, for a while, she exchanged letters with Richard Greenhow, a Glaswegian, whose photograph she kept on her bedside table.

Another who wrote served with the RAF and came from Blackpool. He thought Emma was lovely because she shared his Mother鈥檚 Christian name. The third respondent she cannot now recall but she thinks that, probably, he served with the Army.

This recollection always brings a smile to Emma鈥檚 face.

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