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This story was submitted to the Peoples War Site on behalf of Eleanor Date Tetley and has been added to the site with her permission...

Eleanor's mother had a boarding house in Blackpool, she took in 36 evacuees all from Manchester Grammar School. The children were getting rather unruly, one of them slid down a bannister, crashing into a full length mirror and breaking it. Following this the headmaster and his wife came to stay also. The children were expected to help in their turns and one little boy said that he felt he was above peeling vegetables.

Eleanor was courting at the time, she hadn't been called up to do war work as she was helping at home with the evacuees. She married in 1940 at Holy Trinity Church, it was a beautiful wedding and she had 6 bridesmaids. The very posh reception was held at the Pleasure Beach. Her husband was a driver in the RAF. Eleanor knew nothing of what to expect on her wedding night, her mother had never told her.Her Aunt asked her at the station, as they were going away, if her mother had told her the facts of life, and she said no. Her Aunt said her mother should be horsewhipped. It was completely dark and pitch black at the station and a voice calling out the trains, seemed to come from heaven. They honeymooned in Coniston.

One night lying in bed with her husband, they heard an almighty bang. She nagged him to get up and see what it was and a bomb had landed across the street. One of Eleanor's strongest memories is of a group of pregnant mums taking the fresh air walking along the prom.

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