AN 88-year-old grandmother has spoken of her delight at seeing her granddaughter walk up the aisle in the wedding dress a wartime bomb meant she never got the chance to wear herself.

Edith Bourne married her Stourport sweetheart, the late Leslie Bourne, in Birmingham, where she then lived, on Easter Saturday in 1941 but, two nights before the planned ceremony, German bombs rained down.

When Edith returned to her home an unexploded bomb had fallen near the house and - to Mrs Bourne's horror - she was not allowed in, which meant her wedding dress was tantalisingly out of reach.

Mrs Bourne, of Burlish Close, said: "I could not get into the house to get my dress. I felt awful, sort of stunned. I didn't know what to do."

Her satin wedding dress, lovingly made by her own mother, Harriet Fox, of Kidderminster, has hung in her wardrobe - unworn - for 63 years ever since.

That was, until a week last Sunday when Diane Bourne, only daughter of Terry Bourne of MalhamRoad, Stourport - Mrs Bourne's son - wore the gown when she married John Porterfield, of Glasgow.

Mrs Bourne said: "I was thrilled my granddaughter wanted to wear the dress. It was wonderful to see her wearing it and she looked so nice in it. She had altered the neckline to make it a little lower but, apart from that, it was just the same."

The happy day, at Spring Grove House in the grounds of West Midland Safari Park, Bewdley, with guests from Dubai, Ireland and the Isle of Man, where the couple live, was a far cry from Mrs Bourne's wedding day.

The wartime event, in St Paul's City Church, Birmingham, was a bit draughty, as all the windows had been shattered by the bombs, she explained, and the reception at the local girls' club had to be cancelled as it had been flattened in the air raid.

She had to resort to wearing a blue dress, coat and hat, which had been among clothes left for safekeeping at an aunt's house in Kidderminster.

Mrs Bourne said: "I didn't look too bad, but obviously it wasn't the same."

With no reception to go to, the couple went back to Les's mother's house at Wilden, near Stourport.

Mrs Bourne said: "It was a bit disappointing but the neighbours at Wilden were very good. They came round to my mother-in-law's to share butter and sugar from their rations with us."