1
WWII War Bride, Florence Albers2
Florence Wilkinson1939
London, England
3
I lived in London in the St. Marylebone area near the Wax Museum with my parents, my brother and my sister. My dad was a bricklayer and my mom was a housecleaner.Every Friday, when I was growing up, Mother would take me to "Davies" for cream puffs. When I was thirteen years old, I got rheumatic fever because the swimming instructor made me swim in cold water and she kept poking me under the water with a stick. I will not go in the water at a beach to this day. We lived in a two-story house and when I was ill with rheumatic fever, my dad had to carry me downstairs and upstairs because I could not walk. During the day, my dad and mom were working, my sister was in school and my brother was in the hospital. I had no one to look after me until they came home. I would just lie in bed all day like a rag doll.
I loved to dance. Mother called me "Irish Molly" because it was the Irish dances that I liked. That was the only entertainment we had, to go to a show or to a dance.
4
At age fourteen, I finished grade ten and went to work in a toffee factory wrapping chocolate bars. I worked there for two years, then worked at a paper mill for one year where I pushed sheets of poster paper through large rollers to flatten them. One day, I was putting these large sheets through the machine and my fingers went through with the paper and got flattened. I was lucky because the accident did not leave me with any permanent damage to my fingers.5
Florence Alber's wartime employer, Vi Spring Brothers1948
London, England
6
I left the paper mill and went to work for Vi Spring Brothers making bedsprings. My job involved operating a machine that clamped bedsprings to a frame. Then, I would manually flip the half-assembled bedspring over and attach the other side of the framework.When World War Two began, part of the factory was converted into making recoil springs for Tommy guns. I was transferred to the recycling division. In that area of the factory, damaged Wellington Bombers were disassembled for parts. The good pieces were placed in bins for reuse and the damaged parts were sent out to be melted down. I worked at this job until the end of the war.
7
Vi Spring newsletter1948
London, England
8
In 1939, my brother died and my father passed away nine months later. My mother and I lived alone from that point on because my older sister had already moved away. While living in London, my mother and I lost our home to bombing raids on three occasions. Each time it was a different house and each time no one was home because of work. When the first house we were living in got bombed, we didn't have to move any furniture because there was nothing left to move. We then moved to another house and shortly after, we were bombed out again. Mother and I moved to a house on Iverson Road and one day, I returned home from work and the house was gone. Again, there was nothing left to pick up.9
Bomb damage in London WWII1945
London, England
10
You just cringed when the German planes came over. If you were at work, the air raid sirens would go and then you stopped everything and ran for the air raid shelter; a hole dug four feet in the ground, surrounded by brick and covered with tin.When the Germans sent the V-2 rockets over, you would not hear or see them and there was no warning given that they were coming. We would be working in the factory and all of a sudden there would be a thud and that was it. We did not know where they hit until we heard on the news.
Everything was rationed but clothing. My mother and I were only allowed a pound of butter a week between the two of us. We could only get meat on Sundays, so we lived on fish and chips and meat pies.
11
Florence Wilkinson1945
London, England
12
Florence Albers and friends1939
London, England
13
One night in 1942, my friend Sally and I were on our way into a movie theatre when two handsome young soldiers walked by. One of the soldiers called out, "Hi Blondie" and my attention was caught. My first date with Harry Albers was to the movie Casablanca.Harry was a private with the Westminster Regiment. He was stationed nearby at the Aldershot Army Camp. When his battalion went into active duty, he fought in Italy, Holland and Belgium. While stationed in England, he visited London to stay with me at my mother's home. When I first met Harry he told me that he owned a "Gopher Ranch" and that he was a millionaire because he owned a million gophers. He also told me that he didn't have decent chairs on the ranch; there were only tree stumps to sit on, no chairs. I fell for it.
14
Harry Albers in uniform1941
Camrose, Alberta
 |
 |
 |
 |