Wedding Bells
Basil could hardly bear the tension as he waited with hundreds of demob-happy troops to disembark from RMS Andes as it pulled in to Southampton with flags flying in early January 1947.
Raucous cheering broke out when an announcement came over the public address system to confirm the new record and this was followed by repeated singing of ‘Rule Britannia’, which was conducted with great gusto by a huge, red-haired Scot standing on top of one of the lifeboats with his kilt swirling in a lively breeze.
Two ear-splitting blasts from the ship’s horn put an end to that, however, and signalled the start of an endless procession of hundreds of men from ship to shore that ended when they were marched to a demobilisation centre where they were issued with rail tickets.
As time wore on Basil became more and more frustrated because he had dreamed for days on the voyage from Singapore of how quickly he would phone his parents and Madge after setting foot back on English soil for the first time since 1943. He had even changed money on the Andes to ensure he would have coins for the call, but there was a problem. The queues for the phones were enormous and he became increasingly worried that by the time he did get through, her shift at the nursing home would be long over, so he simply got the train from Southampton Central to Woking. When he arrived at his front door, he gave his mother and father the nicest of shocks because the letter he mailed to them hadn’t arrived and the boat had docked almost a week early anyway.
Almost as soon as he had greeted his parents and dropped his bags in the hallway, Basil picked up the phone to Madge, who ran to the telephone when she was told she had a call.
‘Hello? Basil? Is that you?’
‘Yes, it’s me, darling Madge. I’m home!’
Madge held a hand over her mouth to suppress a sob of delight. ‘Oh Basil, that’s the most wonderful news ever! When can I see you?’
It seemed there were yet more obstacles in the couple’s way when Madge remembered that she was supposed to be working all weekend. Grace, however, came to the rescue.
When Madge put the phone down from Basil, looking forlorn at not having been able to arrange when they could see each other, Grace asked her what was wrong.
‘Oh, stop worrying, Madge,’ Grace said once Madge had explained the situation. ‘After what we’ve been through together, the least I can do is change my days off and fill in for you. I know you’d do the same for me.’
Madge practically squealed with delight as she threw her arms around Grace to thank her.
Madge called her mother and Basil and the big reunion was scheduled for late Friday afternoon at the Graves’ family home in Union Road, Dover. However, it didn’t turn out to be the big romantic scene Madge had had in her mind. When Lily told Doris that Basil was coming she arranged to leave the farm in East Grinstead early so she would be home when he arrived, and Doreen held top-level discussions with her school friends about the situation! The result was that when Basil knocked on the door just after 6 p.m. on the Friday evening there was an unholy scramble between the sisters to give him the once-over. He gave Madge a great big hug in spite of the audience, and that was that. They all loved him!
Basil had arrived at Southampton to a dry if somewhat chilly spell, but by the middle of January 1947 it had turned into the coldest winter of the twentieth century with heavy snow, and blizzards in the Channel. A month later there were three-foot-deep snow drifts and it became officially the coldest ever February, with March being the wettest.
Snow was the biggest worry in Kent, which was particularly badly affected, and because Madge and Basil could meet only every other weekend travel was a major problem. But whenever they were able to spend time together, the couple made the most of it, going on real dates where they talked and spent time getting to know each other in a normal environment, and during this time their love really began to blossom.
In a bizarre twist of events, however, an opportunity arose in which they would end up staying under the same roof. It happened when Basil was being medically examined at Aldershot Garrison in connection with his discharge from the army. He was told that if he wanted an A1 discharge to show on his demobilisation papers, he needed to have his infected tonsils removed, otherwise it would be B2.
His biggest problem, however, was that he couldn’t find a doctor to carry out the operation. A specialist surgeon connected to the maternity home in Birchington, where Madge was nursing, said he would remove the tonsils if he could use their medical facilities. The result was that Basil had his tonsils out in the maternity home’s main delivery room, and because of a complication he wasn’t released for ten days, much to Madge’s delight!
Dr Bowie, the anaesthetist, told Basil the day after the operation that he had had such a problem getting him under that he had left the theatre and asked if anybody had a mallet! What he had actually done was to drip ether directly onto the mask.
‘Isn’t it wonderful to be able to spend time together after so many months apart?’ said Madge, who had slipped away from her duties for a quick chat with her beloved.
‘I’m far from a pretty sight, though, aren’t I?’ laughed Basil, who then winced in pain. The ether in the general anaesthetic had burned his lips and he had ended up with a big and very painful red ring around his mouth. ‘I’ve been told all I can eat for the next ten days is ice cream, but I suppose that’s no real hardship,’ he said with a wink. He couldn’t help thinking of the last time he’d been hospitalised, not long after arriving in Chittagong. He had been treated for malaria and diphtheria in 68 IGH, where he found that patients like himself, who were able to get out of bed, were put to work polishing and sterilising the lino-covered floors in their ward. On reflection, being looked after in the maternity nursing home was more his cup of tea!
The bitter and brutal winter was replaced by the most glorious of summers, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the first three days of June. On the evening of 2 June, Basil took Madge to a Burma reunion concert. The heat in the Albert Hall was so extreme that the audience couldn’t help but be reminded of the jungle conditions in which they had fought in the Far East.
‘I just hope there’s enough beer for everybody,’ General Sir William Slim joked.
The show’s line-up included Jack Warner, Lynn Burnett, Noël Coward and Tommy Handley, who paid moving tributes to the Forgotten Army. The performer who caught Madge’s eye, however, was the fourteen-year-old daughter of Ted and Barbara Andrews who stole the show. Madge laughed when she reminded Basil that the girl’s mother had actually asked the audience if it would be OK for her young daughter to sing.
‘Remember the name because I think we are going to see a lot of that young lady,’ she told Basil, as she praised the enchantingly pretty and talented Julie Andrews.
The headline act was forces sweetheart Vera Lynn, who received a standing ovation after several encores, which included many of the favourites she had sung to the troops in Burma.
‘That was an evening I will never forget,’ Madge told Basil as they left the concert hall.
‘It certainly brought back memories,’ agreed Basil, who told Madge he had had the privilege of attending a Vera Lynn concert in Chittagong in 1944. ‘She’d flown from London and even brought her own pianist and piano! Watch these steps, they’re quite steep,’ he said, as they walked hand in hand from the Royal Albert Hall.
‘It was only two or three months before you arrived in Chittagong,’ said Basil, ‘and she wore khaki trousers and a long-sleeved shirt because the mosquitos were such a problem and it was an open-air concert. She sang non-stop for more than two hours, encore after encore. The whole audience kept chanting “We’ll Meet Again” in an effort to get Vera to sing one more time, and hot and exhausted as she must have been, she nodded to her pianist and off they went again.’ He smiled at the memory.
‘Just like this,’ asked a smiling Madge, who quietly began to sing, ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.’
‘Bravo,’ said Basil.
Madge’s life had settled into a happy routine. She was thrilled to find out, weeks later, that owner Hetty was so pleased with the way she and Grace had organised the maternity home she told them she had a surprise.
‘This is my way of saying thanks to you girls,’ said Hetty, as Madge and Grace stood wondering what on earth she was talking about. ‘I know you’re both still young but I don’t think you will ever get the opportunity again in your lives to see a future Queen of England being married. I’m giving you the day off so you can be part of the celebrations.’ Madge and Grace clapped in excitement.
Not only did Hetty give them the day off to travel up to London for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip, she also paid for return train tickets and a hamper full of goodies for their special day. They didn’t really see a lot when the royal procession went past because there were such huge crowds, but Madge thought the atmosphere was amazing. It reminded her of that exciting week in London before the journey to Chittagong.
On the train back to Birchington, Madge asked Grace if she remembered the problems with trying to buy those three pairs of shoes in Darjeeling.
‘I certainly do,’ she replied.
‘Well, just the other day I had a letter from a Darjeeling solicitor saying that I’m going to be sued for refusing to pay and I’m going to be arrested if I don’t attend the court case!’
‘Heavens above!’ said Grace. ‘What are you going to do?’
Madge said she was so upset she had asked the advice of a wily old lawyer who acted for the maternity home. ‘He told me not to worry because he would write on my behalf saying that I would be only too happy to comply with the court ruling. All they had to do in return was send funds for my air fare. Oddly enough, neither I nor the solicitor have heard another word from them!’
The next day, Madge received an invitation from Basil to join him for a family weekend in Woking. He had settled quickly into his new job with Vacuum Oil in London. The invitation was just what Madge needed because she was concerned they weren’t seeing enough of each other, even though they had had a vague discussion about a future together in the capital.
Oh, the thought of another weekend together has really cheered me up, Madge said to herself.
Basil told her there was going to be a big family dinner on the Saturday night and as it was going to be a special occasion, she decided to take her favourite dress from Poona.
‘It looks so elegant and I love those stripes,’ said Basil’s Auntie Mabel. ‘I haven’t seen anything like it. Did you buy it in London?’
‘It’s a long story,’ smiled Madge, as the evening drew to a close.
The following night there was a knock at the door of the single room where Madge was staying.
‘Come in,’ she said, and there was Basil with two cups of tea on a tray. He put the tray on the dressing table then turned and handed her a beautifully wrapped little parcel with a pink bow on top.
‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ he asked. Madge had half opened the present but was puzzled because it certainly didn’t feel like a ring and she began to wonder what on earth was actually in the delicate velvet bag. She shook the contents into her hand and out came three glittering diamonds. She placed her other hand over her mouth in surprise before beaming with joy.
‘Basil . . . This is the most romantic and thoughtful thing that’s ever happened to me,’ she said. ‘It would be a privilege to become your wife.’
Madge decided that there must be many, many wives who wished their fiancés had done exactly the same thing instead of being given rings that they secretly didn’t like. But Madge was able to choose the setting that she really wanted.
A wedding date was set for the following October at St Mary’s, an old Anglican church in Horsell, Woking. Stringent clothes rationing was still in force and there had even been a reduction from sixty coupons to forty-eight, but even when you had enough coupons clothes were difficult to buy. It was no secret, then, that everything was borrowed. Madge was loaned a beautiful, full-length wedding gown of white crepe with a figure-hugging bodice and a long lace veil with real camellia flowers that accentuated the elegant A-line skirt. Her sisters Doris and Doreen won admiring glances in their borrowed fuchsia-coloured bridesmaid’s dresses. (When Madge and Basil returned from their honeymoon they decided they wanted to keep the dresses, in remembrance of their wonderful day, and paid their kind benefactor for them.)
Madge was hopelessly nervous as she approached the altar on the arm of Basil’s father Herbert, who was giving her away. As she knelt alongside her bridegroom, Basil turned to her and said, ‘You look absolutely beautiful, Madge. Do you know, I was just told about one of our wedding presents. Can you believe we’ve been given six green beer mugs from George Woodman!’ It was a strange thing to say at the altar, Madge thought, but it made her smile and the jitters started to disappear.
When the reception was underway Madge’s ‘new dad’ Herbert gave a speech in which he expressed great pride in the way Madge and Basil had served their country in the Burma Campaign.
‘Madge’s father Charles served in India in the Great War,’ said Herbert, ‘and had he been able to see his eldest daughter married, he would have said the same thing.’ Basil’s father was far too modest to mention his own wartime service in France but continued by saying that he and his wife Alys were equally proud of the way every one of their children had rallied to the cause. ‘And it goes without saying that we are profoundly grateful that Bill, Buster, Beryl, Basil, Brian and Bob have all come home to us.’
Madge changed into a two-piece black bouclé suit, for which she had been saving clothing coupons for months, under which she wore a pale blue roll neck, long-sleeved sweater that she had knitted herself. She had splashed out on new black shoes when she and Basil had had that vague discussion about living together in London.
‘You look just as stunning as you did in your wedding outfit,’ exclaimed Grace. Sadly, Vera and Phyl had not been able to make the wedding because of travel complications.
‘Oh, doesn’t she just,’ Doris agreed.
‘Talk about something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,’ said Doreen. ‘You’ve got the lot!’
Basil had also switched from his Moss Bros morning suit and waistcoat and changed into his Montague Burton double-breasted demob suit.
‘I love that navy blue colour on you,’ Madge whispered to him. ‘You look ever so smart.’ She took her new husband’s hand and gave it a squeeze as they both smiled at each other affectionately.
As they left the Yorkshire Restaurant to catch the train from Woking to London for the first leg of their journey to Brighton, where they were going on honeymoon, they were hit with a blizzard of multi-coloured confetti. Just as they attempted to shake it all off on the platform, the whistle sounded and they hurriedly got into their compartment.
The train very quickly started to pick up speed as Basil tried to open the window in the hope that the draught would blow away the confetti that seemed to appear every time they moved. The window, however, was jammed so he decided to open the train door just a teeny-weeny bit to get rid of the confetti once and for all. It worked, but in doing so the train’s emergency braking system was triggered and the Woking to Waterloo express screeched to a bone-shaking halt.
A moment later an irate guard was stumping through the train carriages to see who had caused the problem. Fortunately when he saw Madge and Basil, who were obviously newly-weds, he simply gave them a very cheery wave as he walked past and searched elsewhere for the culprit. Basil waved back and Madge blew him a kiss before resting her head on Basil’s shoulder.
‘Hello, husband,’ she said, looking up at him with a smile.
‘Hello, wife,’ he replied, smiling back.
Then they fell into a contented silence as they gazed out of the window at a country no longer at war.
How different things are now from when Basil and I first met, thought Madge. But whatever life may throw at us in the future, at least we will always have each other.
Their life together was just beginning.