The Bride Who Never Was: The Wartime Tale of a Girl and Her Wedding Dress
As a historical researcher, I spend a lot of time trawling through newspaper archives. I find them an invaluable resource, as they feature stories of ordinary people whose lives often won’t be recorded in history books. These stories offer a personal glimpse into the past, giving history a human touch.
One such story I recently uncovered was that of Kathleen Rose Zebedee. I read an article reporting her death, which sent me down a rabbit hole, piecing together a sad sequence of events from wartime.
Kathleen was 20 years old and living temporarily at North Lodge on Mill Lane in Brockenhurst. She planned to marry once she turned 21, to her fiancé George Newman from Redlynch near Salisbury, who was in the RAF. On a late Saturday in November 1940, she took her wedding dress to a store in Southampton for alterations. November 1940 was one of the worst months of the Southampton Blitz, so it comes as no surprise that by the following Monday, Kathleen learned that an air raid had destroyed the store, and her wedding dress was gone.
I can only speculate how hard this news must have been for her to hear. She was a machinist, a young woman, and it was wartime, so money was likely tight.
The following week, she was cycling home from her work in Lymington. It was dark, and again I am speculating, but I imagine she was thinking about how she could save for a new wedding dress. I am not sure exactly where she worked. It’s very possible she was a machinist at Wellworthys.
Regardless, it’s likely she was distracted while cycling. It was also pitch-black due to blackout restrictions, with no street lighting.
All of these factors conspired against her.
As she cycled, a co-worker, Dennis Augustus Feltham, aged 18, an apprentice fitter from Pilley, was pushing his own bicycle. He had stopped near a railway bridge that passes over Southampton Road. His small bike light had stopped working, and he was attempting to repair it.
While he was fixing his light, he saw another light coming down the hill and assumed it belonged to a cycle traveling at high speed.
It was Kathleen.
Before Dennis could jump clear, Kathleen collided with his bicycle, and she was thrown through the air.
She died from a fractured skull and brain lacerations.
The coroner absolved Dennis of blame and observed that it appeared Kathleen was cycling too fast in blackout conditions.
A relative of Kathleen said:
“Kathleen was hoping to be married next month. Her fiancé is in training with the RAF. We tried to communicate the news to him, but do not know whether we have succeeded”
Please note: the image used in the header of this article was generated using AI, and is not a photo of the event described, but purely for illustrative purposes only.
