大象传媒

Part I, 1939-41: Harwich

In 1939 war was obviously coming and I had done ARP training 鈥� air raid precautions 鈥� and fitted gas masks and done first-aid and learnt to drive an ambulance round Cheltenham. I took my ambulance driving test in the fog!

We were in Cheltenham when war was declared. I remember it only too well. My heart sank. I am not sure I didn鈥檛 burst into tears. Anyway, for a year nothing happened as regards the war. We went on as usual. We went up to London and went to things and went dancing.

I remember when I was staying with friends in Tunbridge Wells and I had to go and fit these beastly gas masks on people. There were two old ladies of 90 and 92 and, poor old things, they kept rocking to and fro and all they could say was, 鈥淚t鈥檚 war, it鈥檚 war, and we thought it was peace.鈥� They would not try the masks on.

In 1940 I went and joined up. People were joining up. I was 24. A lot of women were joining the Land Army. I had put my name down to join the WRNS (Wrens) or the WAAFs. I didn鈥檛 want to join the Army. I thought the Navy, or the Airforce as a second string 鈥� because I thought it was a pretty uniform. They had places in Cheltenham where you could sign up. So I went off one day and did it. I told my parents afterwards that I鈥檇 done it. They were a bit startled.

Nothing happened for ages and ages, and in the end I think I wrote to Harwich and said 鈥淲hat is happening?鈥�, as that鈥檚 where I wanted to go since I knew the area because we had lived at East Bergholt before moving to Cheltenham. They said 鈥淐ome up and see us,鈥� and I went up there and that was it and I was in the WRNS. As an ordinary Wren I had a strange rough serge uniform with a hat rather like a sunhat, with HMS Badger on the ribbon.

I was staying with friends in Bury St Edmunds. They had got married in 1938 and I had been a bridesmaid. He was in the Suffolk Regiment. Their daughter was born in 1941 on the day he sailed to Singapore, where he immediately became a POW of the Japanese.

I went and worked for the WVS (later the WRVS). I helped in billeting Eastenders in Bury St Edmunds. We went to the Council Offices there and billeted all these people from Bethnal Green. They were mostly Poles. We had to try to find places for them all to go to. I also helped sort and send out Land Army clothing. We couldn鈥檛 get big enough shoes for some of them. That was when I got asthma from the dusty disused mill where they stored the clothing. I had the most appalling asthma attack at a dinner party.

Having no qualifications to do anything in particular, I thought, 鈥淲ell, I could drive a car鈥�, as I鈥檇 said to the Wrens, but then I thought, 鈥淲ell, I鈥檇 much better try and do something else as well just in case.鈥� So I hired a typewriter and taught myself to touch-type, with much laughter, with a Pitman鈥檚 typing book, for six months. It was a great help in the future, because by the time I joined the WRNS I was able to type. That was a real bonus because, from being a driver, which was quite fun really, I went into the Signal Office and was able to type signals and so on.

As a Wren, I think I was paid 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence: approx 55p). You were given an allowance for your lodging of 30 shillings (拢1.50). When I had a little house of my own, after I found a landlady up there in Bury, I paid 26 shillings. Then she left because she had small children and wanted to take them away from Harwich. I went to share a house with two other Wrens. I don鈥檛 know how we managed. If I drove someone to Chatham or somewhere, I would be given about 2 shillings (imagine it!) for my lunch. With any luck he鈥檇 give me lunch! But we managed somehow or other. My father hadn鈥檛 really got any money (he鈥檇 lost it in the Wall Street Crash). When he had money, he gave me something, but we seemed to get along somehow. The clothes were all given to us 鈥� the uniform and the shirts. I think if you were a Wren in a barracks you got practically everything given to you, but we didn鈥檛. We got shirts and ties.

I didn鈥檛 smoke 鈥� I didn鈥檛 like the smell of it on me. Not everybody smoked in those days. Not the girls. Sometimes in appreciation when you gave them a ride somewhere (as I did sometimes when a driver) sailors would toss you a cigarette 鈥� not the officers 鈥� it was the sailors who鈥檇 do that. The sailors got cigarettes as a ration.

The idea was that you shouldn鈥檛 go out with officers, but lots of them used to come up to our little house when they were in port. We used to have parties there 鈥� they鈥檇 bring the drink. Usually they were the commanders of the ships. One of them lent me a car as he was going off to sea and so that was rather nice because I was able to get a certain amount of petrol for it and we could drive down to the quay. In fact, I remember driving down one night with the Captain of Destroyers sitting on the bonnet and the rest of the car stuffed with people, and the Petty Officer on the gates at the quay was, I think, rather horrified but he couldn鈥檛 do much with a full commander on the bonnet! He didn鈥檛 dare say anything 鈥� he just waved us through 鈥� it was terribly funny!

The Captain of Puffin, a corvette, who we called Mr Puffin, and two of his officers used to come up to our house and bring some drink if they were in port, and we used to go there. They seemed to be in more often than the destroyers which we also went on board. I had some very good friends in Harwich. One was DB, as we called him, who was a dear 鈥� a most amusing man. His ship went down while I was in Gibraltar. I got the signal through on my birthday that he had been sunk and drowned. I went to see his wife after the War. The Signals Officer at Harwich was also one of our chums who used to come up to the house. I remember, later on when I was a cipher officer, looking through the hatch between us and seeing him with all the bits of his typewriter laid out in front of him, where he had taken it to bits, and wondering if he would be able to put it all together again!

Once when I was on the train from London to Bury St Edmunds, I was knitting and dropped my ball of wool. The man sitting opposite me picked it up and handed it back to me. I said, 鈥楾hank you,鈥� and he said, 鈥楶lease.鈥� From family holidays in Austria before the war, I knew some German, and knew that if you thanked someone in German they would reply, 鈥楤itte鈥� meaning 鈥楶lease.鈥� I asked him where he came from, expecting him to say somewhere like Czechoslovakia, and he said Devon! He had no accent. Perhaps he thought Devon was so far away that I wouldn鈥檛 know it! Then a young airman got in at the next station and the man began to talk to him about the bombing. I was alarmed and got up from my seat and went to find the two Military Policemen, who I knew were on the train. I couldn鈥檛 find them and decided to alert the police at the next station, which was Bury, but when we got there and all got off the train, suddenly he was gone! He must have realised I suspected him of being a German spy.

My parents had moved into a friend鈥檚 flat in Queensgate while I was in Harwich after I joined the WRNS; they had managed to keep the grand piano and a little girl of an immigrant family, who later became a concert pianist and married into the Royal family, was allowed to practise on the piano. While there, my father was hit by shrapnel when trying to put out an incendiary bomb. I remember that I was under the drier in the hairdressers in Ipswich when a chap came in and told me.

I was on the quay in Harwich one evening in 1940 (having done a 12-hour shift driving) and just going home by car when two chaps came up 鈥� a Lieutenant-Commander and a Lieutenant 鈥� and said 鈥淲here is the Admiral鈥檚 office? Could you take us there chum?鈥� I said 鈥淚鈥檓 just going off duty.鈥� They persuaded me to take them and I said, 鈥淎ll right, I鈥檒l take you but I won鈥檛 bring you back 鈥� somebody else will have to bring you back.鈥� So I took my future husband and his First Lieutenant up to the Admiral鈥檚 office. After that I learnt that the reason he asked to see the Admiral was because his ship, HMS Whitshed, had been blown up by a mine 鈥� the whole of the front was blown off it. I remember having to take a truck down with some Petty Officers to collect the remains of the people who were in the front of that ship when it was blown up and a Petty Officer saying 鈥淒on鈥檛 look, Miss, don鈥檛 look.鈥� (It happened in January 1940, I think, when the Whitshed out of Harwich was blown up in the North Sea by a German mine. The Lieutenant-Commander brought the ship in backwards because its bows were blown off, and he managed to seal the doors and pump out some of the water to save the rest of the crew. He got the DSO for this. This was described in a book, HMS Wideawake 鈥� the names being changed because of the War.)

Then the Whitshed had a water polo match over in HMS Ganges at Shotley, which was across the river. I was sitting there watching them and suddenly a figure appeared over the benches behind me and sat down beside me, and said 鈥淗ello, my name鈥檚 R茅 Conder. What鈥檚 yours?鈥� and there he was again. (His name was Edward, like his father, and he was known by this abbreviation of his second name.) However, we went on board his ship later on, the three of us from our house, and I remember all going down to his cabin and seeing pictures of little boys on the wall 鈥� two little boys.

Then after I left Harwich and went back just to see my friends, I was asked on board the Southdown, which was a corvette, because I knew the Captain, who had been to a dance with us when I lived at East Bergholt, because he was at Shotley then. The other guest there was R茅 Conder, who had been the Captain. After the Whitshed, he had been given the Southdown, and was now handing it over, and he said, 鈥淚鈥檓 in London now. I鈥檓 a lonely man. Come up and see me sometime.鈥� I鈥檇 no idea what he was talking about, although I understood that his wife had died. Anyway, I never got in touch with him 鈥� and lost a couple of years there. We didn鈥檛 meet again until I happened to go by chance to a dance on HMS Renown in Gibraltar during Operation Torch, but that鈥檚 another story.

I became an officer either late in 1941 or at the beginning of 1942. I had to go down to Greenwich to do an officer鈥檚 training. They tried to make us march, but we weren鈥檛 very good about doing that, and we had to sleep in the cellars every night on mattresses, because there were bombs, and I got scabies, of all the awful things to get. My father said the soldiers used to get it in the First World War.

We had great fun at Greenwich. I had a room 鈥� we refused to call them cabins 鈥� with a girl called Nancy Spain, who became a very well-known journalist later, and she was very amusing and good fun. The other one was a German speaker so she became a sort of listener to the German airwaves. We were told about naval history and they tried to make us march round in the parade ground and that sort of thing. We dined in the beautiful Painted Hall at Greenwich 鈥� which was quite a thing 鈥� people go to see it.

Nancy gave the most wonderful performance for the Head Wren, Dame Laura Matthews, when she came to see us. Nancy gave us a pantomime 鈥� suddenly out of the blue 鈥� a complete pantomime all by herself 鈥� just a tiny snippet of each thing. She came on pretending to be the hunting chorus, with a whip and that sort of thing, and then she was the principal boy and the principal girl 鈥� the whole lot 鈥� she was absolutely wonderful.

We also played ping pong with Laura Matthews. Nancy was very good and she said, 鈥淵ou mustn鈥檛 win. Whatever you do, you mustn鈥檛 win against her.鈥� So we had to pretend we had missed the ball, because it might have made her cross, we thought 鈥� silly really.

We weren鈥檛 there very long and then we were passed. I don鈥檛 know why I was passed because at the end I had flu terribly badly and spent a whole week in bed 鈥� we were only there a fortnight and I spent one week in bed, feeling absolutely desperately ill.

Then I had to go and have an interview and they said, 鈥淲ell, you cannot possibly go back to Harwich.鈥� I burst into tears, not being very well, and said, 鈥淲hy not?鈥� They said, 鈥淏ecause it wouldn鈥檛 do. You鈥檙e now an officer. You would be with the Wrens.鈥� I protested but it wasn鈥檛 any good and that was it. I was too ill to get home any other way and so I got a taxi all the way from Greenwich up to Hampstead, where my parents were then living, and recovered there. I went back to Harwich and saw my friends, but I couldn鈥檛 be a Wren there any longer.

(continues in Part II)

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