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She never worked in the workroom where all the wreathes and bouquets were assembled.

The Flower shop job only lasted for six months before she was sacked for being cheeky to the manageress.

The labour exchange found her another position in a tuck-cum-florist shop. This shop only did favours for the Eton and Harrow match. She was stuck there with all those boys and they were real devils. They would flirts but then she was just as bad. She was always in and out of work. She had positions in both Wembley and Northwood and met several famous boys who attended Harrow and Eton Schools.

On Saturday evenings, accompanied by a colleague, they attended the shilling hop. The florist shop did not shut until nine o’ clock after which the staff had to take all the flowers out of the window and put them in other vases. The window then had to be redecorated. We were all anxious to get this done and put on their make-up and get to the dance for half-past nine.

Dorothy met her husband Ted Neal at one of these shilling hops. She didn’t like him to begin with and didn’t want to dance with him. He persistently asked her to dance and I tried to palm him off with my friend. Still he persisted and when she caught diphtheria from her sister’s children he brought fruit and flowers to the isolation hospital and waved at me through the window. After that she was friendlier towards him. She was about nineteen when she first met Ted and he was about the same age. Although we had attended the same school they did not know each other until then.

Neither of them had been very bright at school but Ted was very athletic and extremely good at the hurdles. In fact Ted was so good that Lord Burleigh, the great hurdler of that time, coached him. Lord Burleigh gave up his own time to coach boys in London schools

Ted was always good fun to be with we married in 1936 before the Second World War. Their first they bought for £650and was in Richmond. Her first baby was born there in Richmond but we always hankered to go back to Wembley to be nearer our parents. We eventually moved to Wembley and stayed there for the duration of the war.

Ted was an engineer and before the war he worked on Rolls Royce engines and on the Merlin’s that were fitted in the Spitfires. The demand was so great he had to work almost day and night, seven days a week. Not only did he work long hours but he had to dodge the bombs as well. The factory later moved to Liverpool where the mill workers were retrained to work on the engines.

The war went on everybody was parted from their families. Our house became an open house, where everyone came, bringing their boyfriends or any other lonely people. There was always a welcome at our house and it was always full of people.

By this time Dorothy and Ted had two children, a baby and a toddler. She left the children with her mother in Wales while the bombing raids were on. It was during the bombing that she took up smoking to calm her nerves. They had a large steel table in our dining room and most nights she slept underneath it. There was an ATS girl billeted with her and they became good friends. Her friend married an American and Ted gave her away. Sadly she died when she was forty but Dorothy still kept in touch with her children.

After the war people still used their large home as an open house. Everyone

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