RONALD AND EILEEN OWEN

Kevin interviewed this wonderful couple about their experiences for his book on the war’s end

Ronald Owen was a 19-yearold pay clerk when he met his future wife Eileen at a

Valentine’s Day dance in

Worcester Park in Surrey in

1938. She was 16. They fell in love, and spent a lot of time together in 1938 and 1939.

After he enlisted, they decided to get engaged just before he went to Egypt with the Royal

Army Service Corps in 1940.

Five years later, Sergeant

Ronald Owen returned from

Palestine on VJ Day, now aged 27, in the nose cone of a Lancaster bomber. He arrived in East Anglia, got a travel warrant and travelled to London by train. He arranged to meet Eileen under the clock at Waterloo Station, and she said that she would be wearing her Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) uniform. They had not seen each other for five years, but they had exchanged countless letters.

Ronald stood near the clock holding a newspaper and looking over the top of it at every woman in an ATS uniform who came near him. He later remembered, “The great fear that I had was that I am not very attracted to large ladies and I would see a large ATS girl coming towards me and I’d think, ‘Oh God, don’t let that be her!’ And then suddenly there she was looking absolutely wonderful. I recognised her immediately: slim, all the buttons brightly polished. I had never seen her in uniform. There we were, we met, and from that moment on that was it.”

They got married 10 days later (pictured above) and took a train to Fowey in Cornwall, where they stayed at the Ship Inn for a few nights. They remained together for the rest of Ronald’s life, and celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2015. Ronald died the following year. Eileen lives in Chichester where she celebrated her 99th birthday in May.