Marriage during The Second World War

Marriage during World War II

My father, Percy Godber, and my mother, Harriett Elizabeth Godber, were married during the Second World War.

They met in 1938 when my father joined the WTA (Workers’ Travel Association) Rambling Club, my mother already being a member. On Sunday, 15 September 1940, their Rambling Club was having lunch not far from Westerham in Kent, where there was an RAF fighter station. All of a sudden the ramblers heard a rumbling noise, and then they saw in the sky an armada of German bomber aircraft — they had never seen so many aircraft. Anti-aircraft guns opened up on them and the bombers scattered. Then over the top of them came RAF fighter planes and a great scrap ensued. One of the German bombers came down near the ramblers, but fortunately did not explode. All of this was witnessed by both my mother and my father, and was , of course, the climax of The Battle of Britain.

On 8 February 1941 my parents were married in Oxford Registry Office. My mother worked for the BBC at the time and had been evacuated from London to a country house called Bletchington Park, just outside of Oxford. As such, my mother was not considered to be domiciled in the area by the church authorities and so a church wedding was not possible. There were only 5 guests at the wedding — my mother’s mother, my father’s father, my mother’s eldest sister, a friend of my mother’s from the BBC and a friend of my father’s. They had to catch the 4.00 am train from Paddington to Oxford to attend the wedding because of the limited wartime train service.

After the marriage ceremony, everyone went to a restaurant in Oxford for lunch, which was a very modest meal due to food rationing. Then my parents caught a coach to Victoria in London, and then a Green Line coach to Sidcup in Kent, where they were to set up home together in a rented ground floor flat.

The flat was very cold, and on arrival my father set to to get a fire going. While he was in the middle of this activity, a Fire Warden knocked on the door and asked my father if he would do fire watching that night. My father in no uncertain terms told the Fire Warden that it was his wedding night and that he had no intention of fire watching! Apparently after this, relations between my father and this Fire Warden were somewhat icy.

Two weeks later, during the night, a bomb fell close to my parents’ flat during a night time air raid. All the glass in the bedroom windows was blown out and my father had to board them up the next morning. No repairs were carried out during the war, and so my parents had to put up with very restricted light in their bedroom until the war was over.

There were no air raid shelters nearby to where my parents lived that they could have sheltered in. Some time later, my father took advantage of the offer of a Morrison Shelter. These shelters were abut four foot by six foot in size and you had to put them together yourself with nuts and bolts inside your home. You also had to paint them, and there was strong wire netting provided to sleep on. These shelters were quite strong and designed to offer some protection should your house fall in on top of you.

So my parents had an eventful courtship and wedding day.

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