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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Pauline Pearson from CSV/麻豆官网首页入口London on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with the author's permission.

During the war I was working at a factory in Kenton, Middlesex testing Spitfire engines for oil leaks. This was a hush-hush operation. In 1943 one evening I decided to to go Victoria Station with a friend to welcome home the troops. This young man walked up to me (I was 20 at the time) and invited me to have a cup of tea with him which I agreed to do. His name was Albert Hawkins who was serving in the Royal Army (REME). He was then posted to John Islip Street barracks. We went out together when he had leave, going to the pictures and dancing. He met my parents once. The sad thing was that we were very happy together but I met someone else and I married him in 1946. I regret it to this day because it lasted just ten months when he went back to his mother's in Nottingham. During this brief marriage, Albert wrote me a lovely letter inviting me to get engaged but my parents intercepted the letter and wrote to tell him I was already married. I found this out later.

After this I stayed single for thirty years and in 1976 I married the best man I could ever wish to meet. We had sixteen and a half years together before he died. So happiness came in the end.

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