When war broke out Marie, aged 14, was visiting Granny Gray in Jarrow and was sent back immediately to Warrington by bus for fear of bombing of the docks. She left school because of the war and joined the post office as a telephonist and later joined the WRNS serving at the Royal Naval Air Station Stretton in Cheshire. Whilst there she fell out of a lorry badly damaging her front teeth. She described the mortification of having to cross the base with her face badly swollen and covered in blood. Because of the war she was unable to get dental care for several years and was horribly self conscious. Worse, her beloved Granny Gray was sent to stay with her daughter Kitty at 5 Scudamore Lane in Wembely which the family believed would be safer than Jarrow. Granny Gray had had a leg amputated and could not get down into the air raid shelters but would shelter under a kitchen table. On 10 November 1940 she was caught in an air raid and died the next day at Redhill County Hospital Edgware ( recorded at the Imperial War Museum London). In 1941 Nanna's cousin Edwin Gray, a wireman on HMS Neptune was one of 764 men killed when they hit an uncharted mine field off the coast of Tripoli. Just one man survived the tragedy ( see the neptune association website)