大象传媒

September 3rd, 1939. War had just been announced on the radio and my mother was crying, with the ignorance of youth I thought, 鈥淗ere we go making a fuss.鈥� I was 18 years old and felt no emotion except curiosity. In the first week of the war I applied for a post in an accountancy office, I was interviewed and a couple of days later received a letter of acceptance. I was amazed as I read and realised I had applied to the A.T.S, at the interview there was nothing to suggest this fact. Oh no I thought, blue would suit me much better, if I鈥檓 joining in the war it will be in the Air Force.
For the next two or three weeks I went to various Air Force stations with no success and finally wrote to the Air Ministry. I was given an interview and asked all sorts of questions to which I replied with the answers I thought they wanted, and was then asked would I like to be an instrument repairer. I hadn鈥檛 a clue what that would entail but readily agreed that I would.
So a few weeks late in October I went to R.A.F. West Drayton as a trainee WAAF. On arrival I was issued with what ever was available which at that time wasn鈥檛 much, a skirt, stockings, men鈥檚 pyjamas etc and taken to the hut where all the other trainees were. There were about 20 鈥� 24 beds and without any instructions we naturally split into, the young ones at one end and the older ones at the other. We all settled down and started our new life. A few days later a little lady arrived looking very lost and bewildered, I felt so sorry for her and went to give her a hand. The older ones took no notice of her until it was discovered she was Lady Bouham Carter! She was a lovely person, a bit eccentric.
We settled down to nine months classes to cover a course that would normally take 3 years. We had very little money and were not allowed off camp very much so any distraction was welcome. One of the little girls had been given a little monkey by her brother, she had a uniform made for it and it came and lived with us. Our hut was usual for these days with two stoves at each end surrounded by curb which just suited the little animal to sit on, he afforded us a great deal of amusement until we heard on the grapevine that the powers above had heard of our little visitor and were not amused. So the next weekend five of us went to London to the Daily Express Office and announced that we had a monkey and a story. We were taken up to the roof through office after office filled with men with green eye shields just like the 30鈥檚 films. We emerged triumphantly with a pile of photos with us with the monkey. The next Friday inspection day, the photos were pinned all round the hut with a notice 鈥� Russle find the Monkey,鈥� of course by then our little friend was in the zoo.
This was just the start of my six years in the WAAF. I should love to hear from any Instrument Repairers or Mechanics especially those from 110 Shed Henlows.

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