How 70-year romance blossomed in bomb-making factory during Blitz

SHE first caught his eye across the floor of a bomb-making factory during the height of the Hull Blitz in 1942.

Today, Leslie and Elsie Fairbank, both aged 90, are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary.

The couple are as devoted to each other now as they were when he earned a crust as a wages clerk, while she slaved away making bomb fins at the sprawling munitions factory in National Avenue, west Hull.

Mr Fairbank said: "We clicked straight away when we met and we still get on very well and enjoy each other's company all these years later. We're happy."

Mrs Fairbank has Alzheimer's disease and her husband cares for her night and day, despite his own age-related health complaints.

"I have been told I have the option of respite care where she goes into a care home for a week at a time," said Mr Fairbank.

"But I won't let them. It's very tiring, I will admit, but I can look after my wife myself."

It was a shaky start for the couple who spent what little free time they had enjoying cinema trips as war raged around them.

Mr Fairbank recalls his parents' home in Cottingham Road taking a direct hit from a Luftwaffe bomb.

"Fortunately, we had all been sheltering in the Anderson shelter in the garden and we all survived but the house was gone," he said. "We were given a new place in Newbald Grove."

After a year of courting, the pair tied the knot at the Church of the Holy Name, which once stood in Hall Road, north Hull.

"We had a week-long honeymoon booked in Skegness," he said. "But we enjoyed ourselves so much and were feeling a bit flush that we had an extra day."

Mr Fairbank went on to join the Royal Navy, training at a Butlins camp, which was renamed HMS Royal Arthur, near Skegness.

He later joined the perilous Arctic convoys, which dodged attacks from U-boats and bombers as they delivered vital munitions and armaments to the besieged Russians.

For many sailors, conditions were dismal as they contended with freezing temperatures.

"I was nice and cosy in a wireless cab tapping out and receiving messages," said Mr Fairbank, who rose to the rank of Leading Telegraphist 1st Class.

"But it wasn't so good for the other poor chaps I can tell you. I wasn't scared – at that age you just tend to absorb it all."

Mr Fairbank can recall an occasion his M-Class destroyer, HMS Matchless, was refitted at Hull's King George Dock.

"I cycled home on my bike to see Elsie," he said. "It wasn't much fun speeding along on a bike over cobblestones."

After the war, Mr Fairbank gained employment as an insurance clerk for the friendly society, Liverpool Victoria, where he remained for 32 years.

Mrs Fairbank worked for 14 years as a lollipop lady close to Bilton roundabout.

The couple, of Belvedere Drive, Bilton, have two sons, David, 68, and Steve, 65, as well as two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Mr Fairbank said: "We have some lovely memories and we had some very nice holidays. In the 1970s and 1980s we had an apartment in Spain, which we enjoyed.

"We used to bowl a lot in Hornsea, but we can't do that anymore because we're not in the best of health. But we still enjoy doing word puzzles together."

Mr and Mrs Fairbank are celebrating their milestone anniversary with a trip to Bridlington, the place where they courted.

The couple's eldest son said: "We couldn't have wished for better parents – setting great values and insisting on certain standards, which you appreciate later, rather than at the time, but always very supportive."

Mr Fairbank has some tips for today's newlyweds.

"Keep enjoying doing things together," he said. "These days, people have too much money and seem to lead separate lives.

"Also, it's important to keep looking after each other."