Meeting His Future Wife in England

Heroes Remember

Meeting His Future Wife in England

Transcript

We didn’t have a hell of a lot of money and there was a fire hall next door to the palais and so we went in there and we flogged some cigarettes to the firemen and that gave us the price of admission in you see. We got in there and they had, at that time, in England, because of the air raids and that, they had a lot of afternoon dances. They were called tea dances and that’s all that was sold, was tea and lemonade. So Ed and I, we were standing there, looking over the situation and that. We spot these two girls and so we went over and asked them to dance. One was Gwen and the other was her sister Edie and so anyway I ask Gwen to dance and Ed danced with Edie. So we had a dance and I said, “Can I have the dance after next?” “Yes”. So up into the men’s room I went and flogged some cigarettes, so that we could buy some tea and for the longest time Gwen couldn’t figure out how come it was every other dance until she found out later that we were flogging cigarettes so that we could buy them lemonade or whatnot. And the dance it usually finished around 4 o’clock something like that and they had, Gwen had to go home. She... She lived at a place called Hayes, Middlesex and they had to go part tube... tube train and then bus and so Ed and I, we’d leave there and “See you next week can we meet you inside?”. So the following week, the same thing, but the reason we met them inside was that we didn’t have enough money to pay their way in you see, until we flogged some cigarettes. Gwen and I, we got engaged and we were married on February the 14th, 1942. We had, we went up to Wales, Prestatyn in Wales for our honeymoon and that and then we came back and we sort of led separate lives except on weekends, you know.

Description

Now in England, stationed at Aldershot, Mr. Gorman tells how he met his future wife, Gwen, at a neighbouring town’s firehall dance.

Donald Gorman

Mr. Gorman was born June 23, 1921. His father was a stationary engineer at one of Windsor’s high schools and was a veteran of both the Boer War and the First World War. Mr. Gorman left school after achieving junior matriculation. He held jobs in a bakery, a fish market and as an apprentice mechanic at Remington-Rand typewriter factory in Windsor. After enlisting on September 16, 1939, he took his basic training in Windsor before being moved to Camp Borden for advanced training in June, 1940. Mr. Gorman went overseas with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry Regiment and was involved in the Dieppe Raid.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:37
Person Interviewed:: Donald Gorman
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Battle/Campaign:: Dieppe
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: Essex Scottish Regiment
Rank:: Lance-Corporal
Occupation:: Dispatch Rider

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Meeting His Future Wife in England

Heroes Remember