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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Cornwall CSV Storygatherer, Martine Knight, on behalf of Barbara Edwards. Her story was given to the Trebah WW2 Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was living, with my parents, in Hove, Sussex at the time war broke out.

I was determined to join the WRNS and was stationed at HMS King Alfred in Hove. Just prior to Dunkirk the captain explained what was planned and said that volunteers were needed to take small boats across. The entire Ships Company stood up and took one pace forward! They took about 20 and one rating, who made it back, had been bombed and sunk three times!
Whilst going on duty one day a German plane appeared out of the clouds and what looked like balloons came out of its tail. We all went flat on the deck, but the bombs fell in Shoreham harbour.
A boyfriend and I were sitting having tea one day and saw a dogfight between a Spitfire and a Messerschmit — the Messerschmit dissolved into flames and the pilot came down on a parachute.

After a couple of years I transferred to boats crew, in Portsmouth at HMS Vernon, and was made coxswain. We used to deliver officers from ship to shore etc.
I was then commissioned as a Boarding Officer, went to Greenwich College, and was one of only a dozen or so female BO’s in the country. I acted as liaison between the captains of merchant convoy ships and the Royal Navy control officer ashore. Of course, a lot of the ships I saw off across the Atlantic never came back.

I was stationed in Falmouth at the time of D-Day. It was full of ships of all sorts. When the news came of the D-Day landings a destroyer in the bay fired all its guns.
We were based at Gyllyngvase and WRNS officers were billeted next to the Americans, which was great as we got invited to all their parties. As all American ships were dry they used to mix medicinal supplies with fruit juice to make a terrific drink.
A naval officer boyfriend got me a lipstick called Glorious Red because make-up was so scarce — I’ve kept the remains of it to this day.

Mullion golf course still has 3 bomb craters and I still think back to the war when I’m playing on the 14th hole.

I once fell 24ft whilst boarding a boat in Bangor and had 4 spinal fractures. Luckily, at that time in Northern Island, there was a very clever surgeon who put me into a plaster jacket. I was in it for about three months, but it did the trick.

Video details CWS110804

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