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The people in charge of us - there were some young ones that came, thought they were the Cock-of-the-north. I’d been in the bombing and I knew what it was like. I didn’t feel like bowing and scraping to Officers.

You had to do your best to sort of fit in, but you couldn’t fit in to the army, not when you’d not been in it before. When the war finished, one or two of the officers got thrown in the water by the women (ATS).

They weren’t all ladies, there was a gang of them that come from Coventry — I’ll always remember them. They used to say, come on let’s grab ‘em. There was a scuttle and the officers were pitched into this dirty water — I recollect that very much. I wasn’t an officer but I used to hide when that started. They calmed down after that, they were glad to be going home then.

I didn’t really like the army at all to be honest with you — I’m not the army type so I can’t say I liked it, but I did make a lot of friends.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mary Woolley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See also more of Mary's stories:

• 'You have to go, that's that'
• Fully Fashioned
• Big cakes
• 'By the left and off you go'
• 'Get off the streets'

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