大象传媒

At the outbreak of war I was 17, working in a school which evacuated. It was not convenient at that time for me to go with them so I went to work at the Admiralty in Whitehall. One week after, war was declared and I was immediately transferred to War Registration which mainly consisted of the recording of all movements of ships and subsequently troops and aircraft, not that we were aware at the time of the absolute significance of what we were doing. Our duties consisted of working a three week roster, consisting of seventy two, sixty and forty eight hour shifts. Obviously much of this duty was carried out at night and we were underground the whole time at a location known as the Citadel. Needless to say we were never aware of what the weather was doing outside, and to start with, because air conditioning was very basic, in the middle of winter we would be wearing cotton dresses. Although we were never aware of precisely what movement would be going on, we always knew by the electricity in the atmosphere that something big was afoot. Our department was known as T/P (Teleprinter Communications) working closely with other departments, one of which we met only in the canteen and these were the boys who were dealing with the disposal of mines. There were times when a face would be missing, one never asked where that face was (loose talk of course) but we were aware of what had happened, namely that the person would not be back. Please do not think from this that we did not have our times of laughter and fun, the more so I think because one lived from day to day. We would come off night duty sometimes having worked a seventeen hour shift, which would be from four in the afternoon to nine the next morning, we would have probably two to three hours sleep, come back to the West End and go tea dancing, then straight on to another night shift! Oh to have the energy to do the same now. A memory conjured up by those days is one where because of the lack of stockings, I used to visit the WT (Wireless Telegraphy) room where one of the personnel had been a commercial artist. A space would be cleared for me to stand on the desk where dear George would draw a line down the back of my leg, complete with a heel, which was the fashion in those days. Needless to say the line was not always very straight!

Almost unnoticed, at the end of our huge teleprinter room, was a small office manned by the Air Force. They of course had their own operators, but from time to time one of only two of us from the whole of the three watches were enlisted to take over a machine when the usual personnel were not available. They were quite different machines in their make up to our T/P machines, but operated as a normal keyboard.

I personally had not realised that they were in fact Enigma machines. I became aware of this fact only in recent years when Enigma has been written about and there have been programmes on the television. Imagine my disbelief in knowing that I had actually worked on this machine.

At the height of the bombing I can remember coming off a very long duty, turning into the corner of my street and not being able to get into that street because it was cordoned off, following the dropping of an HE (High Explosive) and a landmine. I can remember being so tired that I sat on a doorstep and went to sleep. Having been allowed, after some time, to approach my home, which at that time was on the fifth floor, I found the wall of our kitchen/living room almost completely blown out. We managed to hang up a blanket until such time as we could have repairs carried out. Make do and mend, as we were always urged to do and to stay in one's home was of paramount importance. There were times when we didn't have electricity or gas and water had to be brought up in buckets, and because we lived on the fifth floor this was no mean feat. Water was such a precious commodity in these times. Unbelievably, we had to make a small amount of water do for many things. At first you would wash using the least amount of soap possible, then in the same water one would wash personal items, that water in turn would either be used to fill a hot water bottle or to flush the toilet. What luxury now is the daily shower, so taken for granted.

My mother lived in a state of constant terror and because of this we didn't see her until the weekend because she used to go with her bedroll, long before we came home from work, and go to sleep at Piccadilly Circus underground.

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