大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Marion Hodge and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
As time went on the young men who had been our 鈥渄ates鈥� and dancing partners, were called up for war service causing quite a gap in our social activities. The billeting of a contingent of soldiers provided a brief respite. Some of them married local girls. Eventually it was our turn to 鈥淩egister鈥� at Barnsley Labour Exchange in York Street at Town End. The time between registering and call-up varied; some girls would not hear anything for several months. The available options varied from time to time so that some girls were directed to munitions or other war work when they really would have preferred to join one of the Services. I had registered on December 31st. 1942 and I opted for the RAF. I passed A1 at a medical held in Sheffield on January 13th.1943 and was told I would be trained as a Clerk General Duties/Postal Duties. A week later I was on my way to the Reception Centre at RAF. Innsworth, Gloucester.
Dorothy had opted for the ATS but was not called up until several weeks afterwards.

It was a very hard winter that year and I suffered terribly from chilblains. The first few weeks were awful 鈥� new shoes, chilblains and hours of parade ground drill are not a good combination. We were taught how and whom to salute and the correct drill for pay parade. It was important that you quickly learnt your service number 鈥� on the fortnightly pay parade you had to march up to the pay table, come to attention, salute the Pay Officer, saying "Sir. (or Ma'am), then your surname and the last three digits of your service number, take the money with your left hand, salute again with the right hand, then march smartly away from the table.

I was issued with clothes and other equipment such as a Service respirator, ground sheet, gas cape, tin hat etc. and most importantly, dog tags bearing my number and religion. The underwear included 3 pairs of voluminous Celanese knickers 鈥� they were always known as 鈥減assion killers鈥� and mine were so big they stretched from under my armpits to my knees. Eventually I got them exchanged at the stores and had a few alterations done to the tunics 鈥� I think the store 鈥渂ashers鈥� enjoyed making us look ridiculous in the ill fitting clothes. No-one got measured for anything and it was pure luck if you got something that fitted. We weren鈥檛 allowed to go out of the camp until we got sorted out. I remember the first parade we had after the issue of kit 鈥� almost without exception we had put our hats on a jaunty angle and we were told off for 鈥渓ooking like 鈥榖us conductresses鈥� and ordered to put them straight. The buttonholes on all the garments were stiff and difficult to use, especially as the clothes buttoned on, what was to us, the wrong side (like a man). We were told that we had to remove the hat when indoors as that was what men were expected to do.
No-one wanted to look like a "rookie" but the texture of the uniform cloth, the slightly greenish tiny of the brass buttons and buckle, and the dimpled leather of the shoes were tell-tale signs. As time (and much polishing) went on, the buttons and buckles took on a well worn look, and all sorts of methods were used to get a smooth and glossy finish on the shoes, most of them involving a lot of spit. The cloth improved in appearance by repeated "dry cleaning".

(I cheated on the buttons etc., and got the desired result for them by swapping my buttons for those of a girl who was being discharged on health grounds. It involved sewing at least 26 of her buttons and 2 buckles on to my uniforms and the same number back on to hers 鈥� from 2 tunics and a greatcoat 鈥� the cap badge was anchored by a wire threaded through loops so there was no sewing involved in that exchange).

To add to our clumsiness we had been vaccinated and inoculated with an assortment of injections and these had left the upper arms painfully swollen. In addition to all the unfamiliar heavy clothes, we had to parade with ground sheet, gas cape, tin hat and respirator. We marched and drilled, drilled and marched on the parade ground each morning 鈥� it was very cold and the stiff new shoes were hard on my chilblains. We worked up tremendous appetites and although there was a mid morning and mid afternoon break we seldom got to the NAAFI or the cookhouse in time to get served before it was time to turn round and get back to the parade ground. We didn鈥檛 care much for the food in the cookhouse but we were so hungry that we ate it anyway. I could always eat breakfast but lots of the girls weren鈥檛 used to eating so early in the morning and stayed a bit longer in bed. How they lasted until lunchtime I can鈥檛 imagine.

Reveille was played over the Tannoy in every hut 鈥� I think it would be 6 a.m. but it might have been 7 a.m. 鈥淟ights out鈥� was 10 p.m. but emergency lights were left on all night 鈥� a little blue bulb at each end of the hut so that when your eyes grew accustomed to the gloom you could see the way to your bed.

We were billeted in wooden huts, about 30 girls in each 鈥� at one end of the hut was a little store-room and a room for the N.C.O. in charge. At the other end the door led to the ablution block (washbasins and lavatories). There was one ablution block to every four huts. Each ablution block had a small boilerhouse attached and this was looked after by a civilian boilerman. The bath and shower block was some distance away as it served the occupants of all the WAAF quarters.

We slept on a set of 3 鈥渂iscuits鈥�, square mattresses filled with some sort of straw 鈥� about 3鈥� thick 鈥� they were quite hard, and not very comfortable. We had 4 blankets 鈥� clean sheets were issued weekly (the men did not have sheets). Each morning the biscuits were piled one on top of the other, the blankets and sheets were folded and they had to be stacked neatly at the head of the bed. The pillow was a loosely packed straw sausage shape 鈥� the noise of the straw inside when you lay on it took some getting used to. Three of the blankets were folded alternately with the two sheets and the 4th. blanket wrapped round the 鈥渟andwich鈥�. We were not allowed to make the bed up until after lunch 鈥� it was just too bad if you felt ill but not ill enough to justify reporting sick and being admitted to sick bay or hospital. I never saw an orderly or medical officer visit a patient in the barrack hut 鈥� you were expected to parade with your toilet bag etc. to be assessed by a doctor as either to be admitted to hospital or sick bay, or returned to duty after medication.

All our belongings had to be put out of sight into the lockers 鈥� a set of metal cupboards. There were two stoves in each hut 鈥� a bed near the stove was nice and warm but could be a liability because girls used to sit on the bed and even if they moved to let you get into bed they would sit round the stove and chat. I can鈥檛 remember any chairs in the hut but there were two wooden forms. The stoves were difficult to light as we were only supplied with coke and we had to use our initiative to get some sticks. I think there had been a hatchet in every hut at some time but they had a habit of going missing and we usually had to resort to chopping wood with the sharp edge of a small shovel.

Friday night was 鈥淒omestic Night鈥� and no-one was supposed to leave the hut until the lino space round and under your bed had been swept and polished.
After the initial training period we were told our postings. Much to my dismay, I was posted to the H.Q. Unit of the same camp. I was moved to a different hut and had to use a different cookhouse. I worked in the orderly room for a few months before I was sent to London for a 2 week course in postal duties.

This was a very pleasant change from Innsworth. We were billeted in what had been a block of luxury flats in Buckingham Palace Road. There were four beds in my room and we had the use of a luxury bathroom 鈥� there was a huge bath with huge taps, a heated towel rail, and lashings of hot water. The dining room was in the basement and by comparison the food was marvellous. There seemed to be a copious supply of milk which I loved, and a variety of well cooked appetising food. We travelled by tube to two different G.P.O. establishments, one week at each place, one of them was in Soho and there we were able to nip out to a little bakery and buy the most delicious warm crusty cheese rolls I ever tasted. There were some London girls on the course and they looked after us on the Underground, but after the lessons they would go to their homes which left the rest of us to find our own way about the city, most of us had never been to London before. There were lots of bombsites scarring the city by that time but in that fortnight there were no air-raids. We heard a bit of gun-fire occasionally but no bombs.

My friend and I managed to get free tickets to two shows while we were in London. This involved a hectic dash in the coffee break to the ticket office in Leicester Square. We used to arrive back at the school absolutely breathless after running up 4 or 5 flights of stairs to reach our classroom after emerging from the Underground.
We were tested at the end of the course and I was promoted to ACW1 on the strength of my results. When I got back to Innsworth I left the orderly room and started to work in the camp post office. For a few hours each day the front office was open, dealing with outgoing parcels, postal orders, stamps, banking etc. It was rather daunting at first to face the long queue of people on the other side of the counter but after the day or two we became confident and preferred that job as we were so busy, the time just flew. If we were not on the counter we were in the sorting room 鈥� the mailbags were delivered by a civilian postman based in Gloucester city. We sorted the letters into the different 鈥渨ings鈥� and these were collected by the wing postal clerks who sorted them into huts.

The parcels were listed and slips made out for the recipients. These were sent with the letters and the addressees had to come to the main office to sign for their parcel. Registered mail was handled in much the same way but there was more paper work involved. There was always a pile of letters from other camps that had to be identified and sent to the addressee on our camp and another pile of letters that had arrived on camp after the addressees had been posted elsewhere and they had to be re-addressed and forwarded.

The Sgt. In charge slept on the premises.

At this time the food was not particularly good 鈥� it was quite common to find stray baked beans in the custard, rice, pudding etc. There was no alternative menu and you had to file past the hotplate while the servers put the food on your plate. Another undesirable ingredient was the occasional earwig 鈥� the camp was over-run with earwigs during summer and autumn months. They got into everything - food, clothes, beds etc.

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