Ambulance Girls Under Fire by Deborah Burrows

Author:Deborah Burrows
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was, of course, nothing like my wedding in 1937.

That had taken place in St George’s, Hanover Square and we had three hundred guests. Lily’s wedding to Jim was at the local register office and their guests numbered ten. My gown had been of parchment moiré with a beautiful lace veil that had swept the aisle behind me; Lily wore the blue dress that Katherine had made and a chic little blue-and-white hat. I had carried a huge bouquet of orange blossom; Lily’s small posy was lily of the valley and its scent filled the room. Six bridesmaids wearing white net frocks with crimson velvet sashes had attended me; Lily walked in alone to join Jim, who stood tall and handsome in his RAF uniform, at the registrar’s desk. His only sign of nervousness was the imaginary tune tapped out by his fingers on his leg, but when Lily entered the room it was as if he had seen a vision. And when she smiled at him…

It was not in the slightest like my wedding, because it was so very much nicer.

The guests were a mixture of British and Australian. Katherine Carlow, the Matron of Honour, was English. The Best Man, Peter Creighton, was Scottish and looked dashing in his Scots Guards dress uniform, complete with sword. The other Australians were Pamela Beresford, the daughter of an Australian bishop and a close friend of Lily’s who also had a flat at St Andrew’s, two Australian pilots from Jim’s former RAF squadron, Fred Harland and Mike Corrs, and Fred’s wife, Frances. Mike’s wife, Annette, was English, as was another of Jim’s pilot friends, Gerald Wilde. He was a slightly built young pilot officer who hailed from Manchester and took an immediate and obvious fancy to Pam. As for me, save for my little French grandmother, my family had been British since the Conquest. The final guest was the very British, Harrow-educated Simon Levy.

After the wedding we were invited by Jim and Lily to join them for dinner and dancing at the Dorchester.

‘It was where Jim took me for tea, the very first time we went out together,’ Lily said, laughing, as we gathered around them on the steps of the register office in the lengthening gloom of a January afternoon. Beyond the portico, snow had begun to fall steadily.

‘How romantic,’ said Frances, the Australian RAF wife.

‘Not really.’ Lily exchanged glances with Jim. ‘I thought he was boring and he thought I was in love with Da—with someone else. Not an auspicious beginning.’ Lily threw him a cheeky smile. ‘And he didn’t even kiss me goodnight.’

‘I wanted to,’ he replied, bending down and pulling her close. ‘Will this make up for it?’ He kissed her for what seemed a long time, to the sound of whoops from the Australian airmen.

‘Not quite,’ she said, when she came up for air. ‘The matter requires further negotiation.’

‘I married a barrack-room lawyer.’ Jim raised an eyebrow and gave a look of mock horror. Then he glanced up at the darkening sky.

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