Soon after leaving school Fred Pensom took up a 5yr-long apprenticeship at Red & White Buses. He qualified in 1951 only to be called up that same week. The Army for Fred would prove to be an opportunity to continue to develop his mechanical engineering skills and qualifications. 

Donald Harris married Joanna Schmidt, a German citizen with whom he had a child when serving in Germany with the Royal Artillery. Here he described a visit from the CID after he returned in 1953 regarding his family’s immigration status. He presented all the legal documents but was left curious as to how they knew his family were in Lydney. 

Margarete Phelps (nee Seeger) met Maurice, her future husband, when he was serving in Germany. She had escaped from the east and was working on a British army base.  She already had a child and had two more with Maurice. They married in Lydney and built a bungalow in Worrall Hill.