大象传媒

I started basic training at Guildford. I was 19 years old. I volunteered so I wouldn't have to go and work in the factory. I went all on my own. I went on to Oswestry in Shropshire and was only there a month. We didn't go out much as we were too busy marching about.

I then joined the artillery regiment - ACK ACK - we went on to the Isle of Anglesey off the Welsh coast to practice at the firing camp. After a month we were posted to a proper gun sight at Merseyside, where we were on active service. We had practiced using the instruments such as the predictors at Oswestry. We also had to learn all air force recognition.

One night one of the officers said to me 'Do you know you nearly killed a man last night?' I was very surprised. One of our planes had forgotten to signal and my prediction hit the tail plane!

It was very large at Oswestry, there were many artilleries. When I was in London in 481 battery Winston Churchill's daughter, Mary Churchill, was my junior commander. Somebody said Winston used to drop in to see her some evenings, but that's only a rumour I heard!

In about 1943 they had new intakes into the battery. From there I went for a couple of weeks to Arborfield. Then we went up to just outside Rotheram in Yorkshire. We had to help out if they were short of anyone in the plotting room. Telephonists took the messages and officers plotted positions on the boards. Spotters watched the movements of the enemy planes. They had to say what the planes were and judge their height with open sights.

When they invaded France we were moved to near Great Yarmouth as they wanted extra defences. It was only in the latter years that I realised why we were moved!

Eventually I was demobbed and came out of the army. I got married to my husband when he came home from three and a half years in Burma, where he'd experienced some terrible things including malaria.

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