大象传媒

This story has added to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancashire Homeguard on behalf of Mrs Olga Gore and with her permission.
When the war started I was 13 years old and I was still at school. When I left school I went to work in the Borough Treasurer's Department in Darwen. It was quite Dickensian - my friend had gone to work there as well but we weren't allowed to make tea at the same time in case we chatted and wasted time. We often had to work overtime - till 8 or 9 o clock at night. The Pay was 拢7.0.0 a month. I was terribly bored.

I volunteered for the ATS and joined up on August 10th 1944. I did my training in Dalkeith. We had to do lots of marching up and down and were issued with our knickers - they were khaki and had elastic round the legs as well as round the waist - they were called Passionkillers.

After Dalkeith I was sent to London and worked at the War Office in Hobart House. I worked on a Hollerith machine - an early computer - punching in numbers - it all had to do with the Demobilization - sorting out different trades like joiners and builders and so on. Despatch riders were coming and going all the time and we knew something was happening - we knew that the War was coming to an end.

We lived in different requisitioned houses. They still had the names of the owners on the doorbells - Lady P and Lord W and so on! I lived in Eton Place and our Mess was round the corner at 2 Belgrave Square.

Monday night was Make Do and Mend night when we had to do things like darning our stockings - or putting new elastic in our knickers! I joined a Confirmation Class so I could avoid it and get out of barracks!

It was hard work but we had a good time - we used to go to Rainbow Corner where the Yanks went and to the Stage Door canteen where there were dances and concerts and things.

When I was in London the Doodlebugs came over - the flying bombs. They were really frightening - you heard the engine stop and knew it was going to come down somewhere.
I was blown out of bed once with the blast though it didn't particularly worry me - I just picked myself up and got back into bed. All the windows had already been blown out.

We got three days leave on VE day and we didn't have to come back to our quarters - we could stay out all night. I was in Piccadilly and we danced the conga all the way from Piccadilly to Leicester Square. There were crowds of people and we saw the King and Queen and the princesses and Churchill all on the Balcony at Buckingham Palace.

I enjoyed my war - I was in the thick of things..and I was away from Darwen and the Borough Treasurer's Department!

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