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Patricia Bridgen Farley was a Wren (Womens Royal Naval Service) stationed at Portkil, Near Kilcreggan, Scotland during World War II, living in a house affectionately known to the group of Wrens that were based there as 'The Barn'. The Wrens came to be known as the 'Barnites'.
After a brief leave I was once again in Wren uniform. The naval station in Harwich was a good example of a real Wren operation, exactly what I had managed to avoid for three and a half years!
Lots of regulations, lots of officers, lots of Wrens. We young women were billeted in several large tourist hotels in Dovercourt, a seaside town next to Harwich.
I had just about settled down to the routine - where to go for meals, how to get to work, remember to salute, where to go for parades and infinitum - when my life changed dramatically.
My father telephoned me from London where he worked from Tuesday through Friday most weeks, in fact he had a two-bedroom suite at the Waldorf Hotel. He had recently arrived back in England, having gone on a trip sponsored by the government to increase interest in British goods for the hope-to-be-soon post war period. Australia and New Zealand had been his targets.
I hadn't seen him for six months so was thrilled to hear from him. But when he told me the news I almost fainted with excitement. John, my fiancée was staying with him in the hotel site!
I can still feel the emotions I had when my fiancée's voice came over the phone. I could hardly talk. He assured me that he was ready to marry me and I should get leave immediately and come up to London. He didn't know I had been transferred, and told me how he had managed to find out where I was.
Stationed in Blatna, Czechoslovakia, John and some of the other officers in his battalion were living in a real castle with real barons and counts. When the long sought for marriage permission was granted, he took a week's leave and headed for England the best way he could by train and sometimes, Army transport
Once in London, John went to the American Red Cross and attempted to phone me in Scotland. He couldn't get through and soon figured that I might be on leave at home in Manchester. But no one answered the phone there, so he was, as he used to say, 'up a creek without a paddle'.
Then, he had a brilliant idea. He had been corresponding with my father for about a year, and remembered that his future father in law worked in London during the week. He had the address in his notebook, so took a cab, at once, to the Aldwich House in the Strand.
'I took the elevator to your father's office', he used to tell me, 'when I got there, the receptionist rather haughtily, asked me, 'Whom did I wish to see?' I replied, 'Mr. Bridgen'. When a young woman then asked him, on what business, John spoke the sentence that has been passed down for future generations to remember - 'I'm Lieutenant Farley, and I've come to marry his daughter!'
Needless to say, he was ushered in to my father's office with great politeness. Both men hit it off immediately. An old soldier himself, World War I vintage, my father appreciated this handsome hard-working American Army officer, who had fought cross Europe for 13 months and had now come to claim his prize, his oldest daughter!
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