大象传媒

This story was submitted by Pat Yates, a volunteer with Age Concern on behalf of Vera Wright and added to the site with the author's permission and understanding of the site's terms & condition.

I was in the ATS in WW2. From my home in Stoke-on-Trent, I went first to Halifax for training and then was posted to Nottingham and afterwards to Shropshire where I was billeted at Condover Hall and working at the Army Vehicle Reserve Depot close by. The army were stationed at the local stud farm and that's how I came to meet my husband, Jim! He had been serving in the 8th Army in N.Africa where he'd suffered shell-shock and lost his memory and after spending a year convalescing in Pietermaritzburg, S.Africa, he was given a home posting to Condover. We married in 1944 and spent our honeymoon in Torquay on army passes.

We all helped one another in those days and so that I could have a wedding and a white wedding dress my family all contributed coupons to buy material. The fabric was cream crepe and that dress was passed around and worn by many other ATS brides afterwards, but eventually returned to me and I have it still. The remnants of the crepe weren't wasted: they were carefully pieced together and made into a christening robe that all three of my children wore in their turn. The coupons collected bt my family were also enough for material for a pair of lovely pink pyjamas with green cuffs, and I've kept those too, all these years! My aunt,who was a dressmaker, made all these for me.

In civvy life I had been manageress of various Co-op Confectionery shops in Burslem, and so we were married in the family chapel in Burslem and the Co-op did the catering. My Dad had the bright idea of getting off-cuts from the local printer, so we even had confetti - everything in fact for a grand wedding.

Make do and mend applied to other things besides clothes. During the war there was a bakery in Condover named Young's and their flour came in large calico bags.We used to buy these bags from Young's and wash and wash them until they were clean of all flour and make them into tablecloths - even decorating them with drawn thread work. I also have the tablecloths from that time and along with my precious wedding clothes and the christening robe are there to pass on to my daughters.

Sadly my husband died in 1995. We had 51 years of happy marriage, and three children together, and I now have nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

N.B.The bakery and village shop, kept for many years by Marion and John Weatherall, only finished trading in 2003; a great loss to the local community.

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