大象传媒

The year was 1944. I, a twenty-two year of firewoman, was transferred from Salford Fire Station where I worked as station clerk and secretary to two Station Officers, to a strange, wartime life in Hastings, Sussex, stationed at St.Leonards-on-Sea.
Remembering, a mass of impressions crowd in - the nightly unending 鈥榬at-a-tat-tat鈥� of the gun batteries encircling the garrison town. Night duties in the control room; homesickness, panic, and the sheer wonder of some of the new experiences. My first theatre-going at the White Rock Pavilion where the Court Players Repertory Company gave marvellous performances in, for instance, Noel Coward鈥檚 鈥淏lithe Spirit鈥�, and I made full use of the free weekly tickets a grateful public gave to the fire brigade personnel. (Not that I personally contributed a lot to their lives - apart from the one and only time I rode a fire engine, having volunteered to fight a marauding grass fire that was eating up the open countryside and proving hard to control. I can still taste the acrid smoke and feel the heat as we fought to subdue the ravaging flames with beaters - and the heat-blackened, burning faces afterwards.)
Here it was I fulfilled a lifetime ambition to ride a horse -- set up by a fireman who knew the riding school owner and took me there pillion on his motor-bike. Attired in borrowed plumes - the station officer鈥檚 pullover, my own uniform trousers tucked into a pair of fireman鈥檚 boots, I eventually put my left foot in the stirrup for the first time and found myself astride a remarkably tall horse, a feeling of utter bliss suffusing my being as I lived my dream. That first time, a contingent of Fire Service personnel emerged outside Fire Force Headquarters to cheer me on, and thoroughly embarrass me!
I remember the first ever German doodlebug, that sinister weapon of doom. A group of us were enjoying a sing-song round the piano in the social room one evening when a fireman on his way there heard an unfamiliar buzzing tone from a flying object in the night sky overhead. He dashed into the room yelling, 鈥淕et down!!,鈥� and literally pushed me to the floor under the piano鈥檚 keyboard, where dust and fluff made me sneeze and sneeze
After that, a crowd of us would meet on a flat roof adjoining the open-air swimming pool (closed for the duration), next door to the fire station, me attired in my navy gabardine trousers and tunic with silver buttons, plus obligatory tin hat. We鈥榙 sit and watch the nightly flight of unmanned objects on their way to target London, where they wreaked destruction, death and desolation. Probably due to the manic activity of the local gun batteries, three fell short in Hastings, one demolishing the local church.
After a Saturday dance in the social room, an army officer and I opted for a romantic walk along the sea鈥榮 edge. The only drawback was the barbed wire cutting us off from the beach, erected the entire length of the South coast, presumably to prevent invading Germans progressing further. We found a weak link and climbed
over, and had just reached the edge of the moonlit silver sea when a panicky soldier leapt forward, saluted and said, 鈥淪ir -- the coastguard has raised his rifle to shoot you.!!鈥� We beat a hasty retreat鈥�.
Good memories predominate. The bad ones include the endless news on radio of army, navy and airforce casualties in action: the hateful, sneering voice of 鈥橪ord Haw-Haw鈥� gloating about usually imaginary successes of the German, and failings of the British forces. Rationing -- one egg per person on a good week, and the pathetic, individual tins containing minute portions of tea and sugar. Blackouts - and search-
lights sweeping the night sky.
But good memories obscure the bad, as I find happens in life - friendships made to last, problems overcome, and nothing lasts for ever, not even war鈥�

(Postscript)
Some years after women were demobilised from the Fire Service, I married one of the fire officers I had worked for, pre-Hastings. He became Chief Fire Officer of Salford in the 鈥榮ixties, and for the last ten years of his service we lived in the house that has
since become the home of Salford Leisure Services at the old Salford Fire Station in the Crescent, and raised three beautiful daughters!

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