Arguably the most important night in the lives of Lew, 95, and Hilda Duddridge (neé Thomas), 88, occurred while they were waiting for a train in Crewe, England, during a German bombing raid in 1944.

Lew, on a 48-hour pass from the Royal Canadian Air Force where he worked as a pilot in Bomber Command, was heading back to his camp in Yorkshire and Hilda was travelling to Blackpool for a week’s vacation with friends from her job as a telegraphist in Swansea, South Wales.

“They were five girls on holidays and the Germans had dropped a bomb and all the trains were stopped at this central point,” said Lew. “I watched these girls and I was particularly attracted to one of them (who) happened to be Hilda, so when the all-clear sounded and the conductors started blowing their whistles I noticed they were all getting on the same train as I was going on.

“I walked by Hilda and asked her if I could carry her bag. She said ‘yes’ and I’ve been carrying it ever since.”

“Don’t believe that part of it,” said Hilda.

Hilda’s job as a telegraphist made a relationship with a pilot a fairly distressing thing as all reports of missing servicemen went across her desk.

“Whenever there was someone missing in action they sent a telegram to the next of kin notifying them,” she said. “Where we received the telegrams is the job I had.”

Lew’s name never came across her desk, but he was one of the lucky ones. Thirteen young men from Hanley joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War and only two, Lew and his brother Len, made it back alive.

Lew and Hilda were married six months after their first meeting at the train station. On April 2, 1945, at St. James Anglican Church in Swansea Hilda became one of the 48,000 women who would later come to Canada as a war bride of a Canadian serviceman.

Sixty-eight years later, these women were celebrated by the Canadian War Brides and Families Association at a war brides reunion held April 12 to 14 at the Fairmont Empress hotel in Victoria, B.C.

“It was a great success,” said Hilda, noting at the reunion the brides and their escorts were treated to banquets, a military band, a church service and meet and greets with the other families. “It was really well attended and it was a lot of fun. It was great to meet all the other brides and find out what had happened to them and where they had landed.”

To read more please see the June 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.