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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Amy Bennett-Newens, a volunteer from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Cowling and has been added to the site with their permission. Mrs Cowling fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.
Before the war, women in many professions had to resign their posts on marriage. As a teacher I had to obtain permission from the Education Authority to remain at my post, but these restrictions were waived in 1940. We planned to marry on Easter Monday 1941. At that time my fiancé was stationed in North Scotland, and there was some panic when it was announced that army leave travel was cancelled after Maundy Thursday. He has not arrived by Sunday evening, but all preparations, including a “self catering” reception, were in hand.
At 7.30am on Easter Monday, his brother arrived at our house with a message that he had arrived home at 10.30 Sunday evening (no telephones in homes then!)
We arrived at the Church — all went well until the minister asked if there was “any cause or impediment” — and at that precise moment the air raid warning sirens sounded. The ceremony proceeded and by the end of the service the “all clear” was heard. I was later told that that was the only occasion when the warning sounded in daytime in our village. My husband survived the war, and we had nearly forty years together.

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