HOLYWELL 1943

 

After a few evenings in the bar gazing at this beautiful girl, I plucked up courage and asked her to go out with me. We went on the bus to Rhyl on June 3rd. We had our photograph taken on the promenade by a street photographer. It is the one in the silver frame which I asked for as my retirement present from British Gas on exactly the same day, June 3rd 1983. Underneath it is the photograph we had taken in Enfield a month later, July 3rd, the day we got our engagement ring and exchanged presents - a pair of gold cufflinks for me, and a gold brooch with an owl for Marjorie.

In that photograph you can see that Marjorie has a bandage on one of her fingers. Marjorie had had to go to Oswestry a few days before to have a whitlow removed. I was on duty all day and went to Chester to meet her on her return from hospital. On top of the bus in the lower road in Chester I said "Will you marry me?" and she said "Of course I will."

When we got back to the Victoria I went to see Father Stan straightaway. He didn't say much. I think that Dolly and Marjorie had been working on him.

I wrote to Mum and Dad, and Dad wrote a very nice letter about me to Mr Brown, which Marjorie kept. I have it now. So we went down to Cheshunt. There was no such thing as a taxi or bus from Cheshunt Railway Station and we had to walk home. Poor Marjorie in high heels, accustomed all her life to cars! In fact she had her own car, registered as a taxi/emergency ambulance with a petrol ration.

It was part of my embarkation leave resulting from volunteering for overseas service a few weeks before. I didn't know where I was going but I had warned Marjorie, and we had discussed whether or not to get married before I went abroad. I decided against it because it would not have been fair to Marjorie if I should be killed or mutilated.

We had a few happy days in Holywell, sometimes in the evenings in Marjorie's car, or on picnics which Dolly got up for us. During the day I was cycling round the searchlight sites up in the hills doing repairs and maintenance and would pick wild flowers and honeysuckle for Marjorie. When we went to Lake Bala a few years ago with Barbara and Lindsay we bought the Honeysuckle Wall Plate as a remembrance of those happy days.

My time was up and I went to Embarkation Billets in Birkenhead waiting for a ship. For a few days I was able to get over to see Marjorie in Holywell in the late afternoons. In fact I was nearly able to get to Barbara's wedding.

In the end we didn't go from Birkenhead, but went to Waterloo Square in Nottingham where I met Jimmy James again and a batch of other Radar people. We finally got on a train in the dead of night, spent hours going around in circles, stopping and starting like all train journeys in Wartime, finishing up in Clydeside where we went on board ship.

We only had six weeks together, and it was to be 2.1/2 years before I saw her again, except in my dreams.

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