大象传媒

I remember we were invited to visit another station where there were German prisoners of war.
A football match had been organised, the British against the Germans, we were there to cheer our boys. That was interesting. I can't remember who won.
Another time we went to a local Air force camp, for yet another football match, groan, I didn't like football very much, but it did break up our week.
We stayed overnight with the Air Force girls.
They were based in Nissen huts and we noticed how tidy it was, not like our billets at all.

In the morning everything had to be folded up just so, not like us, we didn't care too much, just made it look tidy, even that didn't always work.
Oh gosh, how different!
For breakfast we went to a window and I think curried cow, was just slopped on our plate.
Back at our base we sat down to a table with knives and forks, how civilised.
What a difference.

My sister joined the army and became a driver. She could drive lorries, ambulances, and motor bikes.
If it had an engine she could drive it, and she learnt to strip the engines down too. She knew a lot more about engines than I did. I could drive a car but that was about it.
One time she was stationed in Lancashire and I took some leave to go and see her.
She was billeted in a lovely house. The kitchen was immaculate, a black cooker was blackened beautifully, and the front door step was whitened regularly. Everyone was very house proud. Yes I was really impressed with Preston.

Whilst I was in Liverpool I was billeted just out of the centre, a few miles north.
I remember specifically, the baths. They had a black line an inch or so up the side.
We weren't allowed to have the water past that line.
It was hardly enough to get you damp, never mind wet enough for somewhere near a bath.

The hall we used to show the films was located in the docks.
Once again we were showing instruction films, the same as we showed in Scotland, except here, when we showed the films, sometimes all the doors were locked, and only the captains were allowed to see those films, they were very secret.
They probably knew I was as daft as a brush, and I wouldn't remember what I'd seen.
It was about, goodness knows what. All I remember it was way above my head.

We all had to sign the Secrets Act, and weren't allowed to talk about which ships were in harbour.
Of course we knew, the sailors from the ships were being trained by us.
I remember there was a small flotilla there once.
They were the ships that went out to escort the convoys back into Liverpool.
The Americans would escort the convoy from the USA to about half way. They'd turn back and our boys would escort them the rest of the way, finding a passage through the minefields. The safe lanes would be regularly swept of mines, but the Germans could easily drop more mines during the night, and did almost every night. It was very dangerous, and there we were, at the sharp end.

The merchant seamen were really brave, they'd volunteered to sail the ships.
We would end up in prison if we refused to work, but these boys volunteered for a much more dangerous job.
Some of the ships would go faster than others but the convoys could only go as fast as the slowest ship. This caused further problems.
The navy ships used to move around the convoy, a bit like sheepdogs getting them into place. If one of the ships was hit the convoy had to continue, and a navy ship would go back and pick up the survivors. Sometimes they couldn't even do that, if the attacking submarine was still around.
If they were torpedoed then it would be two ships gone.

I had great pleasure being involved in teaching those boys, as their acquired knowledge of the sonar equipment would to be instrumental in them avoiding being destroyed.
If a submarine were discovered, the ship would put on full speed, trying to get directly over the sub, and then drop mines to destroy it.
They used mines of different types and dropped them in different patterns.
In those days we couldn't tell the depth of the sub, so the mines where designed to go off at different depths to attempt to destroy the sub no matter what the depth.
Wasteful, but effective.
If there were a hit the sub would start to fill with water, so she'd either come up fighting or sink.
A successful hit was the sub coming up, and the crew taken prisoner.
Some of our boys would try to get on board to search for secret papers, showing where they were going and the code books so that the British could decipher the codes back in the UK.
Our boys had anti-personnel grenades, which they would throw down into the sub. When they exploded, they would knock the people out but cause little actual damage.
At one time in the docks there was a mock-up sub, where our boys could practice searching.
The chief had a big black gun dog and when the practice grenades went off the dog would go into 'point', which was what an experienced gun dog would do.

Sometimes there would be very little to do.
When the boys came back off duty the last thing they wanted was to go into lessons, even though it could be to their advantage, and the pub was just down the road, not a lot of competition.

I got bored so I asked the instructor to teach me about mines and all the other things that he was teaching the boys.
He was a very good teacher, and it did pass the time. He taught me the difference between True North and Magnetic North.

I'd heard that WRENs down at Portsmouth were going on the boats. They'd go from one boat to another with the post and things like that.
I thought I'd like to play at that, so once again my instructor friend was persuaded to help me in his spare time of course.

They had an 'Asdic Bus'. It was a double decker, on the lower deck was all the machinery and the upper deck was a classroom that looked just like a ship's control room, a very good mock up.
The students would be seated in the control room and the instructor would operate the equipment on the lower deck simulating a submarine, to train the students in detection, it was just like the real thing.

When we were not working we used to go dancing and to a normal cinema, usually with some of the boys we were instructing.
Nothing 'went on', Oh, but we did have a good time.
There was one chap, a petty officer who would talk about his little girl who was in the Brownies; I knew what he was talking about because I鈥檇 been in the Brownies as well.
I remember he gave me a goodnight kiss. There was nothing at all the wives should worry about at all.

Another time I was with one of the trainee's wives who'd just had a baby. I offered to baby sit so they could go out and enjoy the evening.
Anyway I got the baby in the pram, so I decided to take it out for a walk.
I saw an officer coming.
If there was an officer in uniform, you salute the uniform, and not worry about who's in it.
Anyway as I came up to her and saluted, she burst out laughing.
It was a ludicrous situation.
I wondered what the instructions were regarding, saluting an officer and pushing a pram at the same time.
There probably was a written instruction for just such an occasion. There was for everything else!

Mostly I had a happy time, except for the sad bits, which I tried to keep under wraps and just got on with the job.

Another time I had to go to the local Flotilla Club, the only place where the showers and toilets were.
I used to walk along with a towel, and as I passed the ships, all the young lads would shout and laugh.
It was very funny, the sailors were very witty, lots of the things they shouted were totally un-printable, but we did laugh, and on the way back they'd have yet another go.
Our office was next to the medical centre, and one day I recognised one of the sailors, so I asked him what was wrong, he was terribly embarrassed, one of the others said that he had the c**p.
I didn't know what it meant so I told him he looked very well on it.
My husband heard of this, and thought I was so green!

A little while latter the same boy invited me to look round his ship. That was the first time I'd been aboard. All those narrow corridors and low doorways, it did surprise me. The ship was in dry dock and I could see the complete ship, golly it looked so big. There were holes in the side where it had been hit by enemy fire, and I wondered how many people had been injured, but we didn't talk about it.
I thought he was so very brave. That was the last time I saw him.

In Liverpool there was a dock railway that ran the full length of the docks, this made it easier for the workers to get to the ships quickly.
I wondered about security.
We were not allowed to talk about which ships were in the docks, yet even an apprentice spy just had to travel on the railway to get all the information he needed.
Very strange.

When my husband went to sea I would walk alone to the Flotilla Club and stand at the end of the dock, waiting for his ship to pass and on out to sea.
I waved goodbye and smile, not knowing if I would ever see him again.
That was very hard.
He'd been in the Navy before the war, and he'd begun to wonder when his turn would come.
That was very serious, it did frighten me, but I had to cope, whatever happened, I had to cope.
I knew that.

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