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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Lyn Hedges on behalf of Gwen Webster. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site

At the age of 19, I left my home town, Penzance in Cornwall, to join the WAAF. It was 31 December 1942 and it’s a day I will never forget. I remember feeling apprehensive and yet excited, not knowing what the future held!

After doing my training, I was posted to RAF St Eval as a cook. St Eval was a large operational station in Coastal Command, which played a leading role in the curtailment and finally destruction of the German Bay of Biscay and South Western Approaches navies. It had a complement of many thousand personnel and the WAAFs had their own mess and cookhouse, where I started work.

We cooked on two huge coal ranges. By the sides of these ranges were two 40-gallon boilers, one for hot water and the other for cooking cabbage or puddings. The frying pans were so large we were able to cook 20 eggs at a time. Bacon and eggs were the usual Sunday breakfast. The bacon was cooked in the oven and we layered piece after piece in large tins. It’s hard to describe the heat in the kitchen with four fires burning that we had to light each morning before we could begin breakfasts.

The working day of the catering staff was divided into three shifts. Usually, the night shift was from 9.00 p.m. until 6.00 a.m. the following morning; the middle shift was from 3.00 a.m. until 1.00 p.m.; and the day shift was from 8.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m. The work was hard and being a member of the night shift was no joke, especially as you were on it for a month at a time. The pay was not very good but one consolation was that our food was good! We would have been poor cooks and rather silly if we hadn’t ensured that!

Our social activities were limited, as we were too tired to do much after a shift. But, if I had some time off, I usually went into Newquay or one of the neighbouring villages where the civilians were kind to us. I used to go to the churches and chapels, and made many friends.

We were entitled to 28 days’ leave a year and were given two free railway passes. We also used to have 48-hour passes now and then and, as I lived in Penzance, I used to go home as much as I could. Girls who lived far away and couldn’t get home and back to the camp on time used to stay on the camp. At least they didn’t have to go on duty.

Although we were clothed, fed and housed, the fact that we were not very well paid could be embarrassing when we mixed socially with civilians, who were generally paid much more. However, there was a wonderful rapport in the forces and, whilst there was healthy competition between the various services, we were all very proud to be serving our country and to this day that pride remains.

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