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This story was contributed to the People's War site by a volunteer from Oxford on behalf of Mrs Bishop and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Bishop fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
I was what was called a “war bride”, originally from Brussels in Belgium who got married to an English soldier during the war. I grew up speaking two languages: Flemish and French. I was 14 years old when the Germans invaded us. We actually liked their strictness but not when they insisted on total obedience. Also, they took our men and even the boys to Germany to work for them. We youngsters liked dancing but this was not allowed. We danced in a café and there was a guard at the door who would alert us if Germans were coming. Then we all sat down immediately. This happened one day but the music went on and the SS men came in and sat down amongst us. They listened to the music and eventually started to tap their feet in rhythm. Some couples noticed this and slowly ventured to get up and start dancing. Luckily I was sitting with a boy who did not want to dance. Then they stopped the music, called out the boys who were dancing and beat them up.
After we were liberated we used to go to the 21 club. We spent the day there swimming, skating and dancing of course. That is where I met my husband who was from Witney. After we got married he was sent to Cyprus but eventually we came to Witney and stayed with his sister whose husband was still away in the war. I thought food here was much better than in Belgium where they used to make bread with potato peelings and sawdust.

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