Rose Palmer's Story

Rose Palmer
London

When war broke out, I was evacuated to Kent. We were taken to church by coach, the sirens went and we were put back on the coach to our houses. Nothing happened, I stayed till January 1940 and when I was fourteen my family brought me back to work. I got a job in Knightsbridge earning seven and six pence a week. Then it closed down.

I went to Berkeley Square to a boutique and had an exciting time. Film stars like Vivien Leigh, Beatrice Lily, Kay Kendal, and Lily Palmer. Lady Winterbottom never wore any knickers, and we used to have to grab the clothes and hang them on the line because they stank!

When we couldn’t get the material from the pattern swatch, I used to take them home and make colourful underwear and blouses and people used to admire my washing as I was living in a mews flat. After our house was bombed, I only had the clothes I had on.

When the forces came from overseas, I had a wonderful time. I was hostess at Hans Crescent American Club and danced all night but I was never late for work. I made all my own clothes, mostly from blackout material. I used to spend time with my friend at the switchboard where she worked. One night a heavy air raid was on and the engineer rang and offered to take us home. We walked through Green Park and watched the dog fights of the planes caught in the searchlights. I was seventeen; he was eighteen, my blind date. He was called up into the navy and went all over the world, fought at D-Day and in many battles. We married January 1st 1944. Our daughter was born April 4th 1945

My boy friend asked me to marry him because he’d been issued with all the tropical gear and was being posted to the east. I said, “I can’t, I’ve only got ten coupons”. Ten coupons was a years’ worth of coupons. So the operator said “Terminate your call, your time is up”, I said “please don’t cut us off, this is important”, he said “are you going to marry him or aren’t you?” So I said yes, he said “do you love him or don’t you?” So I said yes. “Anyway, you’re not supposed to be listening.” He came home. We married but he never went to the Far East, it was all to fool the enemy!

Then he came home with oiled stockings, warm clothing, weatherproof coats, big boots – he was nearly in tears because he hated the cold. He’d been told he was to go to Russia. He didn’t go there either! Again, to fool the army. He was at the D-Day battle where he hurt his head under fire, stitched up and hat put back on, and put back on duty on the gun. The ship was a floating dock.

With my ten coupons, I made a sage green dress and jacket, made a nightdress and a padded bedjacket out of some turquoise satin which I bought in Petticoat Lane, and brown shoes. Net wasn’t rationed so I made a pretty hat with two brown birds and net. My mother screamed and told me that birds were unlucky and that my wedding wouldn’t last – we were married 48 years and he died on 9th May, 1991.

We were married in 1944 in Westminster Cathedral, it was a beautiful day but a terrible air raid at night, lots of tourists were all around, the ushers pushed them away to let us through. We made friends with a Polish airman, who promised to take the photos as my wedding present. We posed and we posed but he had no film in the camera so I haven’t got one photo of that day. All the girls I worked with came to the wedding – relatives, about twenty people in total.

After the wedding, we went back to the father-in-law’s house. The mother-in-law had left recently and taken everything, all there was was a put-you-up bed with no sheets or blankets anywhere, but I was determined to wear my nightie and bedjacket. We took the coats off the back of the door and then we kept adding them and adding them as it got colder. We were exhausted when we woke up. Everyone thought we’d had mad sex, but we were just frozen. The next day we went to the pictures and saw the film Desert Rat in Leicester Square and then he went straight to Charing Cross and back to Chatham.

When we were preparing for the wedding, we had no pots or pans or baking tins to make the cake as we’d been bombed so I went to the shop across the road and asked the lady if she had a baking tin. She took a sweet tin from the shelf, about ten inches tall and about four inches wide, so I mixed everything in. Some people gave me an egg, some people some sugar, peanut butter; I mixed everything together. I took all the shelves out of the oven, put it in and it rose to the top. I tipped it out, I only had a few spoonfuls of icing sugar, so I tied white ribbon in bows all down it, and just made the icing on the top. A friend lent me the bride and groom on the top, I showed everybody the cake, took it outside, rewound the ribbon to put back in the shop because they didn’t know I’d borrowed it, and then I cut it in slices and took a little tiny bit of icing off the top and put a tiny bit on each slice and served it in a serviette. It went a long way.

We had the reception at our flat in Kinnerton Street in Knightsbridge, a mews flat. We never went to the shelter when there was an air raid during the reception, they all drank and had a great time, said what a lovely way to go.VICTOR only went to Chatham then he was issued winter gear to go to Russia. Winston Churchill fooled the enemy again and did not send the troops. My husband was training very hard for the landing in France ,Omaha beach .taking the Americans 0ver .My husband was wounded under fire the doctor stitched him up and put him back on the gun .He went all over the world in many battles ending up at Japan, just as the bomb…….THE ATOM BOMB…… was dropped!
He went to Australia for the ship to be refitted, the ship was called HMS Oceanway it was a floating dock. The crew were treated like Heroes! by everybody.They were invited into their houses, parties were held.

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