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The Ministry of Food had been evacuated to Oxford and had taken over St Johns College in St Giles. I was employed doing clerical work, dealing with ration forms. Then the office staff were moved from St Johns college to the Clarendon Hotel in Cornmarket Street. The hotel was no longer used as such and now lay empty. Every floor had a bathroom, and we were allowed to use the bath. What bliss! There were so many evacuees at home; relatives from London and various towns around the coast. It was mayhem to have a wash, let alone a bath. The bottom floor of the Clarendon Hotel later became a club where the forces could go and relax, especially the Americans who were stationed around Oxford. The hotel is no longer there, and is now the Clarendon shopping centre.

I wanted to try my hand at something new. I read: "females needed as post office engineers". I applied and was accepted. My first day of my new job came. I went down the side of the post office in St Aldates to a little room filled with cable pieces, pieces of telephone equipment and tools, etc. In the middle sat a man smoking with a fag in his mouth and ash about half an inch long hanging on the end. He nodded to a chair and continued fiddling with a telephone dial. I sat down. Not a word was spoken. I began to get bored. He looked up, and said "I've taken that dial to pieces, now put it back". He got up and walked to the door, still smoking. Taken aback, I replied: "I wasn't looking". The reply was: "This will be part of how you will be employed. Next time, look and learn. You can go home now".

Further along Cornmarket, just at the corner of Carfax, was a dance hall. Now it was used as a canteen where the forces would go to get refreshments. We girls, after work, would go along and serve them with tea and light snacks. The boys would love talking to us about their families and many a photograph of their loved ones was pulled out of their pockets.

I continued working at the Post Office. There were only a few girls working there doing the same as me, which enabled the male engineers to be released to work in the forces. When the war ended the men who came back resumed working as post office engineers, and women were given employment as Post Office telephonists. Two of the girls who were working as engineers, who had come down to Oxford as evacuees, went back to London and resumed their lives.

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