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My Mother Doreen Kinsey as she was when she joined the WAAF in 1941, went to be kitted out at Bridgenorth. Then she was sent to Morecambe for square bashing and jabs.
Once finished she was posted to RAF Usworth on the Northwest outskirts of Sunderland. There her role was to update the airplane’s technical drawings for the engineers. I have a photograph taken at the Usworth NAFFI of Mum plus a number of other WAAFs.
Mum’s sergeant is seated in the chair; Mum is seated on the arm of the chair (note the x). There are a number of other WAAFs. She remembers that the WAAFs to the right were part of the balloon team but cannot remember any names. Mum is now 83 and since her knee replacement last year is reasonably active and mentally alert!
Last month she went to Eastbourne for the Annual WAAF Association Reunion and AGM. There were 360 members from a total membership of over 3600. Many are now unable to travel the distance involved but look forward to the newsletter. They are very distinctive walking along the prom in navy blazers with the WAAF Association badge and the RAF tartan kilts.
While Doreen was at Usworth there was an influx of trainee pilots and she was given a bike and transferred to a billet with her family in Ryhope. She remembers meeting other WAAFS in Ryhope village to travel in to Usworth for 8 a.m. The other WAAF’s travelled from Seaham and other villages in the area.
Some 10 months later Doreen was transferred to Fighter Command and based at Kenley. Down there she was in the thick of the fighting. One of her roles was to ride pillion on a motorcycle to deliver identity cards to airmen at other bases in the South East. In Kenley she met up with Dorothy, a Surry WAAF who shared her exact date of birth. They celebrated their 21’s at a Lyons Corner House in London.
The final base that the ‘twins’ were posted to was RAF Durrington on the South coast. There they had night duty plotting the planes as they flew including the D-Day forces.
My father Robert Bowman Arrowsmith came from Ryhope too. He joined the RAF because he was an apprentice joiner who wanted a winter coat. His father would not help him so he got one from the King. His squadron was put on board a ship that set of, as he though for the Far East. He was wrong; the boat dropped them in South Africa where they spent the war repairing planes brought down from the dessert fight. As my Mother used to tease him — he had a cushy war.
While in South Africa he visited Kimberly with a colleague who had been a jeweller. They select a diamond, designed a ring and had it made up. Then it was posted home through the thick of the fighting! Mum still wears the ring even though my father died in 1974.
Query — does anyone recognise any of the WAAF’s on the Usworth photograph?

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