大象传媒

This story was submitted onto the website by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Joyce Butler. The author has given her permission and fully understands the site's terms and conditions

My friend Ruth was set to marry an army officer by the name of Carl Layborne. The wedding date was set and he was being posted abroad a week after the wedding. I went over to stay at Ruth's house the night before the wedding as she had asked me to be her bridesmaid. Both Ruth and I wore suits as it was pointless wearing something white and frilly that we could never wear again when fabris were in such short supply. Ruth had the first bath, and left the water in for her mother, and then me to use. I was in the bath and was just about to rinse my hair when I heard the ear shattering noise of guns. I grabbed a towel and ran downstairs to see Ruth and her mother (with their hair full of pins) hiding terrified underneath the table. Hardly any enemy planes seemed to fly over Leeds so it was quite an unusual occurence and everyone was talking about it the next day. Ruth's brother was at the wedding and he was in the Navy (I went out with him a couple of times) and he later went on to serve on the Royal Navy's 'The Hood' which was sunk and he was only one of only three survivors.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.