大象传媒

This story has been entered onto the site by Ashleigh on behalf of Beatrice Grant and they fully understand the conditions

The schools closed and I was fifteen. You didn鈥檛 get evacuated unless you were under twelve so, for a while, we were all in limbo. We had no school because we were over twelve. They did open some schools after that but I never went back because I would have been leaving anyway the next year. Instead I went for two or three nights a week to a private man, a professor on Coatsworth Road, and learned Shorthand and Typing. I got a job on the Team Valley Trading Estate and I started off as a Stock and Records Keeper. I ended up as a Stock taker. It was from there that I joined the army. I had to walk every day from home at 8:15 right down Belle Vue Bank, down to the trading estate to a company called Perga. They made cartons, similar to what you鈥檇 buy orange juice in today except then they were for milk, the only difference was they had a metal strip across the top. They printed the paper, they waxed it and made it into cartons and the cartons were despatched. They used the cartons because the glass was in short supply because it was used for things like wind screens in tanks and so forth.

I was there until I was seventeen and a half which was when I joined the army. I knew that I would have to go when I was eighteen, and I didn鈥檛 want to be conscripted because you couldn鈥檛 pick where you wanted to go, you were sent where they needed you. I volunteered to go to the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service). To tell you the truth, I went to all three of them, the WRENS, the RAF and the ATS but I only got accepted by the ATS. I had my medical and passed it then went and told my boss who was an ex-army officer. He said he understood I wanted to give it up and he said I could leave in six months, during which time I was to teach somebody else how to do my job. So I had to go back for another medical six months later.

My first day was on July 2nd and I was eighteen on May 14th 1942. I went to Fenham Barracks for six weeks training and then I was posted out to Hampshire. I went to the Reamy Workshops in Churwell and I was the Stocks and Records person for the spare parts for tanks and such. I had to make sure that we had enough stuff to repair the tanks. I went away and completed various courses in order to get a promotion.

Then, when the war ended in 1945, my boss wanted me out of the army to go back to my job. By this time I was a Corporal, and the CO sent for me and told me that he wanted me out because there was something called a Class Three Release: if you were leaving to Civvy Street you could get out early, because you didn鈥檛 have to wait for your demob and I said I was thinking about signing on as I liked the army and was thinking about making it my career. However, she said I couldn鈥檛 stay at the workshops due to the fact as went down in numbers (after demob) then you would need less corporals but more privates. That was the way the army worked. It didn鈥檛 matter if you could do the job or not; everything depended on numbers. So anyway, she was very nice about it all and said I would get a posting elsewhere if I did join up because my rank could not be taken away from me. She asked whether I would like to do something else like transfer to catering and work out rations per head. At the time I hadn鈥檛 thought about it. I鈥檇 been involved in food cartons before and I鈥檇 worked with figures all my life so it seemed a good idea so I transferred to the catering section. I went to train at Aldershot for catering courses and was made a sergeant in charge of rations for thousands of people. I used to have to work out menus at so many ounces per head and the right amount of calories and carbohydrates per menu. I did that for four years and was going to sign on again but times had changed it disappointed me. It was different in war time. Some of the attitudes of people joining were different by then.

I did leave after four years and went into the hotel business. I was also in London visiting a friend when the first doodlebug dropped. It just sounded like an aircraft. The sirens went off, and then the noise cut out in the East or West Ham area; I can鈥檛 remember but I think it was the West. The enemy had been firing guns and rockets from the sea before but this was a first. That frightened the life out of me because you didn鈥檛 know when the next one was coming.

I did my bit and I did my job and fed the troops really.

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