大象传媒

I have many memories of the war years - both tragic and humorous but paticularly of the long working hours and then night duties in the Civil Defense. There was little in the way of other distractions, only the tea dance at Wolverhampton Civic Hall which was 4pm till 7pm on Saurdays. We went straight to the "Civic" ater working till 4pm with dress and shoes in a carrier bag - changing in the "loo".

One of my colleagues and great friend's husband (a Territorial)went to North Africa in September 1939 and was there for four years - a Desert Rat. He came back to England in early 1944 for the Spearhead for D-Day and had a few weeks leave. My friend was thrilled to become pregnant but her husband was killed at Caen and never saw his son. She was a war widow with a child to bring up too and existed on a small army pension.

One of my memorable episodes was when I had a few days holiday in 1944 and reavelled down to Camberley to see my husband who was stationed at TAF2 operational airfield nearby. Just as I arrived, the first "buzz bombs" (V1s) did too. We decided to go to Windsor the next day (he had a 48 hour pass) and whilst in the train along with two railwaymen in the compartment, one of the men said, "My God look," and a buzz bomb was flying along beside the train! However, we arrived at Windsor and went to the Great Park and watched another bomb fly over - none of these were at a great height. We could easily see the flame at the rear of the device. After that we decided it would be better for me to return to Wolverhampton as the bombs were coming over quite often. I arrived at Reading station to be told that 500 people were there from the previous night, obviously trying to get away from the area. After waiting what seemed like hours, a train arrived and an announcement came over the tannoy telling all passengers for
Birminghamin to go in the last two coaches; this was a corridor train. By this time another girl and I had chatted, she was from Willenhall and had been down to see a soldier friend and was going back home like me. We knew we didn't have an earthly chance of getting in the last two coaches - it was a long train, eight or ten coaches. We were wondering what to do when we saw a khaki-clad arm waving to us from the front of the train. We dashed up to the front of the train and it wasn't until my case had been lifted up through the door window that I realised all the doors were locked. The next thing I was lifted under the arms through the same window by an American GI and the other girl was delivered the same way - we were both quite small and under eight stones in weight. The corridor was packed with GIs and their kit. There was a bit of a silence between us till a very large woman puffed up to the door and said, "Come on chum, give us a leg up." His reply was, "Have a heart lady." After that the ice was broken and we travelled to Birmingham sitting on kit bags.

The Yanks were very kind to us both and gave us two oranges each, which we hadn't seen for years, and chocolates which were on the ration of course. They showed us photos of their loved ones back in America and told us of their families. They were going to Tettenhall Towers in Wolverhampton.
On arrival in Birmingham, we changed trains for Wolverhampton. All kitbags were piled on to station trolleys and our two small cases on top. We had some funny looks from the general public on the station; obviously they thought the Yanks had arrived and brought their women with them!

My husband was posted to the Far East very shortly after D-Day and was not demobbed until the end of 1946 as the RAF were flying in POWs, sailors and soldiers from Japan, Burma and India and the aerodromes had to be manned to do this so my VE and VJ celebrations were very low key.

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