A small green leather diary with just two entries, but it left so many questions…
This all began when I bought a tiny, green, leather diary of 1944 from ebay. It showed only two entries in the listing, one of which spoke of the owners wedding in Beckenham. My wife was born there and it was just one of those links and no rational reason that told me to buy it.
It was the first entry that had caught my eye and really convinced me I should buy this.
Well, wouldn’t you?
Saturday 8th April, 1944
“Today I am wed to my own
beloved at the Parish
Church Beckenham
at 2.15pm. 25 guests
attended reception. Day
was fine, sunny and warm.
We are very happy.”
The second entry spoke of being sad, as their honeymoon was over and would have to return to camp. For no particular reason, I was thinking this had belonged to a man.
Sunday 16th April, 1944
“Today I am very miserable.
It is the end of our
honeymoon and I have
to return to camp.”
The owner had written their name and address in the front –
M E Walsh
45 Chaffinch Road
Beckenham
Kent.
But then, in the back, an inscription –
“To Minnie,
With love and
best wishes
from
Vera & Charlie
x”
So the ‘M’ was for Minnie!
The inscriptions were so lovely that I just wanted to know that things worked out. The date of the wedding, Saturday 8th April 1944 and the comment about returning to camp worried me. In two months it would be D-Day, did Minnie’s new husband go off and not return, as happened to so many?
I’m not putting stacks of detail into this one because it is relatively recent compared to other stories I have shown here. There will be relatives alive who knew these two people…
Yes, all was well, her husband was Leslie Knell and they had a son and two daughters from what I can see.
If you’ve read through the other stories here, you will know I love a twist in the story…
Being more recent, it is difficult to find out much, quite rightly so. The most recent census data we have available is 1911, well before this story began. But the timing of this story made it the perfect to refer to the 1939 Register. This register was a pseudo census performed in 1939 to ascertain who was available in the country and what they could do, ready for the looming war. Being only five years before their wedding, it was perfectly placed to find out where Minnie and Leslie were.
Well… I looked at Minnie’s details first and there she was at the address inscribed in the front of the diary, with her parents, Sydney and Edith Walsh and her brother Eric. I always have a look around on the census forms, there are often interesting things, and here was this one. Leslie lived with his parents… at number 47. Minnie married the boy next door! That was the icing on the cake for this story!
If you are related to Minnie, I hope this story is ok to relate here, I hope it is accurate. And if you would like Minnie’s diary back, it is yours with my compliments. Drop me a line. I don’t know how it came to be on the open market, I’m assuming a house clearance, but maybe it will find it’s way back, it’s what I hope of all the stories I put here based on ephemera I have obtained.