Peggy returns to church where she was married 72 years ago

Peggy Porter, 90, now attends the 4pm Sunday service at St Peter’s after her church, The Holy Trinity Church, teamed up with St Peter’s reverend Adrian Datta to offer a joint service.

On her first trip back, Mrs Porter still remembered the day that she walked to church in her finery – a year after the Occupation came to an end.

The wedding made the headlines as it was no ordinary wedding – it was one of the first to take place there after the Second World War and was also at the unusual time of 6am.

‘We were getting the boat to Jersey at 9am for a week’s honeymoon,’ Peggy recalled about her marriage to her husband Fred.

‘In those days, there was only one boat to Jersey and that was the time.

‘My mother said the wedding would have to be early so that we could have the ceremony, have a wedding breakfast for the guests and be to the boat for 8.45am. So she asked the vicar and he said: “well, we’ll have the wedding at 6am”.

‘It was only after we returned from our trip to Jersey that my mother said: ‘‘look, you made the headlines’’.’

The press photographer had taken a picture of Mrs Porter walking to church and the headline attached read: ‘Bride walks to church in brilliant sunshine’.

Mrs Porter met her first husband Frederick Russell shortly after Liberation Day.

He was a mechanic for a motorbike store and as the German’s arrived for the Occupation, he bought the only motorbike on sale and hid it from the German officers.

After Liberation Day, he could finally take it out of hiding and give it a ride around the island.

‘I was in the garden one day with my two sisters and we heard this motorbike.

‘Of course, there wasn’t many bikes around in those days so we thought ‘‘who is that?’’.

‘He pulled up and started talking to us. He said to my sister: “do you want to come for a ride this evening” and she agreed.

‘After he left, she said: “I’m not going”, she didn’t really like motorbikes and perhaps she was a bit nervous of going on one.

‘So my sisters nominated me to go.

‘I didn’t dare argue with my sisters.

‘So I went and in the end I got the prize.’

She said Frederick had taken her all over the island on the back of the bike and she loved it.

It was not long after that Frederick proposed and 15 months later, a 17-year-old Mrs Porter walked up the isle.

The couple spent 29 happy years together and had three children.

It was great to return to a church, she added, where she had so many happy memories.