大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Marion Hodge and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
I had imagined that life in the R.A.F. would be far more exciting than it turned out to be. There were no airfields on Technical Training stations 鈥� the nearest we got to an aeroplane was when we happened to go by the hangars where the men were being trained as Fitters and were working on parts of the engine or fuselage. I remember seeing some of the first jet planes being tried out as they flew overhead from one of the nearby stations 鈥� the absence of a propeller and the different engine noise was quite puzzling.

We spent our off-duty time in Gloucester or Cheltenham, usually 'thumbing a lift' from any vehicle that happened to be passing on the main road between the two cities. I got to know a very nice lady who had a lovely apartment in Lansdowne Crescent in Cheltenham. She had stopped to give my friend and me a lift into Cheltenham and she invited us to her home. She somehow managed to provide a dainty afternoon tea for us and it was a real treat to be with her. The dainty sandwiches, on beautiful china, served on a snowy white tablecloth were such a nice change from the basic cafeteria style of the cookhouse. She lived alone, so how she managed to do it on one person's rations I'll never know, but I think she had family connections with a farm 鈥� she was much too refined to patronise the Black Market 鈥� we never asked!
I lost contact with her with my next posting. So many years on, I cannot understand why I did not keep in touch with her and with my W.A.A.F. friends of that period. I do regret this omission.

By 1945 the war had been going on over 5 years and it seemed like forever. As a result I think most of us did not build up hopes of a large scale invasion of Europe happening in the near future 鈥� we had had no hint of it even when, out of the blue, most of Innsworth personnel were dispersed around the country to different camps. A few weeks later we realised that the camp had been cleared to accommodate the troops that were being moved nearer the south coast prior to D day. I was posted to another Technical Training Station at RAF. Hednesford, travelling by train to the tiny station of Brindley Heath and having to climb the infamous "Kitbag Hill" with all my belongings. After the poor food at Innsworth we were delighted to be able to eat in a small H.Q.Unit dining room. It was still cafeteria service but the food was excellent. The walls of the building had been decorated with the sort of pin-up drawings similar to 鈥淛ane鈥� in the Daily Mirror, and the ladies that often were depicted on aircraft.
The Sgt. in charge of the Innsworth post office also was posted to Hednesford. He was promoted to Flight Sgt. but as there was a civilian post office on the camp he actually had fewer responsibilities. We dealt with incoming letters and parcels and collected the outgoing mail from various pillar boxes on the camp The incoming mail had to be collected from Cannock and the outgoing mail delivered there. The re-direction of letters was never-ending.

Every day except Sunday a driver with a lorry would collect one of us to go and empty the pillar boxes around the camp and take the mail to Cannock, bringing back the incoming mail. On Sunday we emptied the boxes and took it to Cannock. We had a rota for the early morning collection and weekend duty and so we were excused the "guardroom" duty which in my case would have meant an overnight stay (on duty) in the WAAF. Guardroom about once a month. Our sorting office was at one end of a block near the main gate 鈥� the Fire Section was next door and at the other end was the Guardroom.

It was a small office and there was an R.A.F. Cpl., an aircraftwoman and an airman as well as "Flight" and myself, so it used to get very crowded with so many people and sacks of mail. Each wing had a post-room which eased the congestion somewhat after the letters had been sorted into the appropriate 鈥淲ing鈥�. and the sacks removed. In addition to the 3 training wings and the S.H.Q. wing, just outside the main camp was an ILHU 鈥� Italian Labour Holding Unit. This unit had a runner who rejoiced in the name of Mario Lanza 鈥� but he wasn't a singer! He was a good looking young man except for a bad cast in one eye. Before his re-patriation he had an operation to correct it, courtesy of the R.A.F.

Eventually the post office was transferred to the Education Block where we dealt with all the mail and a runner from each wing would collect the appropriate bag of letters and the slips bearing the names of people who had to collect and sign for their parcel or registered mail from the main office. By this time all the older members of staff had been demobbed having been in the service for considerably longer than myself. I was put in charge and was eventually promoted to Corporal. We had much more space to work in there and had a radio set and a telephone.

My youngest brother was a Cpl. Instructor on the same camp and when I arrived there I left a message in his Wing Orderly Room to say that his sister would like to see him in the Y.W.C.A. canteen that evening, (there wasn't a Y.M.C.A. on the camp but men and women could use this). No-one believed it was a genuine message, not even my brother, so I expect he had mixed feelings about seeing his sister there.

He was able to show me round the camp etc. and that summer we used to cycle round the district 鈥� his friend Wilf. from Scarborough would usually come along too. Wilf was a tall chap with a huge appetite 鈥� at break times he would buy one cup of coffee and about six "wads", saying he needed all that bread to soak up the coffee. Through them I got to know all the Voluntary-run canteens in the area and Wilf seemed to have a knack of taking us to the one where there was a delivery of off-ration chocolate. He was later to become a Member of Parliament.

If neither of us were on duty at the weekend, Colin and I would set off from camp at noon on Saturday and cycle through the woods to Rugeley and on to Burton on Trent where we caught the train to Barnsley and then home on the 'bus to Cudworth. It was fine on that leg of the journey but coming back on the Sunday evening it was depressingly hard work 鈥� the Lichfield road out of Burton on Trent seemed endless and usually there was a wind against us. Worst of all was when it rained. Even when we turned off that road to Kings Bromley and Alrewas it was still hard going as it was uphill practically all the way, especially the last part when we had to walk through Rugeley woods before reaching camp again.

Colin got posted to the Isle of Tiree, in Scotland, a few months later and I made the journey on my own several times but it was lonely, tiring and spooky especially coming through the woods, so I tried another method. I got a train from Brindley Heath to Lichfield and then hitch-hiked. Most weekends I was picked up by the same driver of a "Burton's (the 50/- tailors)鈥� van who was making a regular run to Leeds. He would drop me off in Barnsley. Most drivers then were glad of some company and I never had cause to worry about my personal safety.

I had 2 very good friends in my hut; Eva lived at Sidmouth, Olwen at Chase Terrace, a tiny village on the other side of Hednesford. The three of us would go to Chase Terrace if we only had a few hours off, to Cudworth if we had a 36hr. or 48 hr. pass, and to Sidmouth if we had 7 days leave. Olwen worked in the Stores. She married an Irishman and settled at Exmouth after the war.

Eva was a Tailoress and worked in the Tailors' Shop next door to the P.T.I. section. Jack Holden, an Olympic runner, was a P.T.I., and he asked her to embroider a pocket badge for him with the Birchfield Harriers motif on it. I helped her but I don't think either of us realised he was such a class athlete at the time. Eva introduced me to my then husband-to-be; an ex-aircrew Warrant Officer from Perth who was a P.T.I. pending demobilisation. She married a Sidmouth butcher where they kept a boarding house and we have kept in touch ever since through letters etc. and the occasional holiday.

During our time at Hednesford the three of us did "cinema" duty for a while, There was an R.A.F. cinema on the camp and we saw the usual films that were showing in the civilian cinemas. Olwen operated the ticket machine in the box office and Eva and I were usherettes inside the auditorium, tearing the tickets and showing people to their seats. We got paid for the evenings we were on duty so that gave us a bit more spending power.

Eva was a good singer and, in spite of being terribly shy and nervous, she would sing at concerts on the camp with an Air Mechanic (Fleet Air Arm trainee) who said his stage name was Scott Savage. I never knew his real name. They sang the Anne Ziegler/Webster Booth type of ballads 鈥� when Eva came off-stage she invariably collapsed in a faint. The concerts were held in one of the hangars and sometimes we had a celebrity entertainer 鈥� I remember Mickey Rooney appearing on one of the shows.

Towards the end of my time in the W.A.A.F. we had dances in the hangar. The Entertainments Officer was a Flying Officer Lenaghan and he must have had connections with some toiletry sources because the prizes for "Spot鈥� Waltzes etc. were usually make-up, perfume and de-odorant for the girls and shaving soap etc. for the men 鈥� all of which were very hard to come by in the shops.

Although the camp continued to train RAF and FAA men as Fitters, after VJ day one wing was designated as a Personnel Dispatch Centre and men were brought there from the Far East to be demobilised. Every now and then there would be someone passing through the system that I had known before they had went abroad so there were a few re-unions. On one occasion all the personnel on the camp had to be re-vaccinated as there had been cases of small-pox on board the "Georgic" bringing them back to England. The procedure must have been effective as there was no major outbreak of it on the camp in the following weeks.

My turn for demobilisation eventually arrived and I went to Wythall in December 1946. I resumed work at the Food Office and passed the exams qualifying me as a Clerical Officer. After I got married I got a transfer to Boston (Lincs.) Food Office as my husband was working as a Met. Asst. at RAF Coningsby.

Two unexpected re-unions occurred after I returned to "Civvy" street. One day at the Cudworth Food Office, a young man with a familiar Scottish accent came in to enquire where he could get lodgings as he had just been appointed to the staff of the Modern Secondary School across the road. It was George (Jock) Gray, who was among the many former aircrew members who became redundant at the end of the war and was waiting for demobilisation. He had been attached to the M.T. section and for several weeks had been a regular driver for the mail run.
I believe he came from Kirkintilloch - he always sang 鈥淲estering Home鈥� as we drove to Cannock sorting office.

The other was when I was a bridesmaid for Marjorie, an old school friend who lived near Daventry. I travelled there on the eve of her wedding and only knew the bride and her immediate family. I had never met the other bridesmaid, the bridegroom or the best man. The best man's name was Jack Smith, so the name didn鈥檛 mean a lot to me, but as I followed Marjorie down the aisle I recognised him as the Petty Officer who had an office next to the post-room when I worked in the FAA wing at Hednesford.

When I think about the war years I am amazed that we won 鈥� there was so much bad news and sadness, the deaths, the injuries, the separations, the shortages, the feeling that it was going to go on forever. There were some happy times and fun, but so much tragedy and heartache for so many people.

We had a very clever leader 鈥� Winston Churchill could announce really bad news but never failed to make people resolve to carry on and win regardless. There were lots of secrets kept from the people, secrets that have been revealed only recently, and, I suspect, many that will never be revealed.

In the stressful days of the war years the British public generally put up with conditions with a good heart 鈥� afterwards the shortages continued for years 鈥� food, clothing, housing etc. It was galling to consider that we were the victors when it appeared that Germans and other Europeans were enjoying the good life with lots of consumer goods and building development.

Sadly the two 鈥淲ars to end all Wars鈥� failed in their objective, but life for the British people would have been vastly different if we had not fought and won.

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