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War Time Romantics Celebrate Sixty Six Years Together

Mary and Roy Holley celebrate sixty six years together.

A chance meeting on a summer’s day in 1939 brought Mary and Roy Holley together, but after an inseparable few months, the Second World War tore them apart for six long years. 

“If it wasn’t for the war we wouldn’t have met!” said Roy Holley, now a lively ninety year old. “I stood in at a wedding for a chap who’d been drafted and Mary was one of the wedding guests. We didn’t get the chance to speak but did a lot of looking! I was delighted when we bumped into each other in a park a couple of weeks later and found out we were virtually neighbours - and the rest is history.”

The couple, who live in Weston in Bath, have been married for sixty six years, but their romance began during a dramatic period in British history, with letters from loved ones being the only contact from home for men serving their country thousands of miles away.

 “I was just fifteen when we met,” said Mary. “We got engaged before Roy was sent to the Far East in 1940 and then we only had sporadic letters from each other until I finally saw him again in 1944. Those letters came every few months and were heavily censored – Roy couldn’t even tell me what the weather was like in case it gave clues to the enemy.”

A long-awaited week of leave for Roy in April 1944 meant the couple were finally married.

“I came home on the Monday and was married on the Wednesday,” said Roy. “We spent our two-day honeymoon in Weston-Super-Mare – you couldn’t book anything in those days so we just asked the taxi driver to take us to a hotel which had a vacancy.”

Mary still has her wedding dress, borrowed on the day from her sister; her bridal bouquet was made from flowers from a neighbour’s greenhouse and a celebratory family feast of carefully hoarded food marked the occasion.

“After just one week Roy went back to the war; he was involved in the
D-Day landings in June 1944 and his ship was torpedoed, so it could all have been over for us. Thank goodness he and his crew were picked up and taken to safety,” said Mary.

Sixty six years on Roy is confined to a wheelchair and cared for by Mary, who is now eighty-six. They have lived in Bath for forty years and their three children; seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren are frequent visitors.

“We don’t get out easily, but the Carers’ Centre Bath and North East Somerset have regular events which we can get to as they provide us with transport, it’s the only chance Roy and I have to get a break together and it makes such a difference to us,” said Mary.