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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Maggie Smith from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Jacqueline Wilde and has been added to the site with her permission. Jacqueline Wilde fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

The city of Cardiff was very nice and clean with a beautiful university there as well, and after I’d been there six months I got married. They made a great fuss and were very, very kind to my husband who had left the fire service because when the raids were over they sent the soldiers back into the army again. First of all he was a fireman and then he went into the army and when the raids were on Birmingham they sent all the fireman back to the cities because they were needed more in the fire service than they were in the army and then finally when the raids after D-day calmed down then they sent the firemen back into the army again so they became soldiers again. At this point he was a soldier and was stationed at Aldershot so we either both went up to Birmingham to meet or he came to me at Cardiff. We got married from Birmingham and had a fortnight’s leave which we spent in London. Although there were bombs and raids going on you couldn’t get to any of the ports because all the ports were occupied by the navy and of course they had barricades all round the beaches just in case there was an invasion. There were blocks all along the seafront so that you couldn’t get anything though the blocks and then down on the sand on the shore there were angle iron, there was barbed wire and everything like that so there was no point on going on holiday to the sea, so we spent it in London. Although we had several raids and had to get up in the night and go down into the lounges it was quite enjoyable and we were able to see some of the shows, one was by Irving Berlin and it was called ‘This is the Amy’ and that had all American army personnel so it was very interesting and it was up to date as well, very topical and very patriotic.

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