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Kay Hutton: ATS driver

We were living in Birmingham when war broke out. I spent my 19th birthday in the air raid shelter. It wasn’t an Anderson shelter, but one my father built himself. The trouble was that there was no room for anything except the bunks, so you couldn’t do anything once you down inside it. So we just tried to go to sleep, but there was often the noise of guns and bombs going off, so you couldn’t even do that. Birmingham got plenty of bombing — though not as much as Coventry - particularly because the Spitfires were being made at Castle Bromwich. I didn’t really appreciate my father at that time but I do now. As you mature, you come to see your parents’ qualities more, and I think he was very far-seeing, in spite of his strictness. When I was saying goodnight to someone at the front gate, he’d simply come to the door and say ‘Get in.’

I was an ATS driver, driving lorries and ambulances. On the whole, it was a good war for us at Harlech, a village in those days. You had a marvellous view of Snowdon from there, beautiful when it was covered with snow. There was a cinema there, though you couldn’t hear much when it rained on the tin roof. We had dances in the village hall — they were good. We preferred dancing with the RAF men because they wore shoes, while the Army men had their great boots on. Of course, in Wales the pubs didn’t open on Sundays and usually closed by 9 o’clock in the evenings. We went to the NAAFI and the soldiers often joined the local clubs so they could get a drink. In the summer we were able to go swimming. We had double summertime then, so it was still light until late at night. I loved the swimming. Our costumes were one-piece in black and we called them ‘Harvest Festivals’ because all was safely gathered in. One ATS girl forgot her costume so she went swimming in her undies, which got all full of sand. When she came out she looked like the Michelin man. Some ATS girls were attached to the Colleg Harlech and looked after the officers there, cleaning, probably polishing their buttons, and cooking their meals.

We mainly came and went as we wished. We always stayed in one night each week to do our sewing and mending jobs. Once a week when I was at Shelton Hall, on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, the US airmen at Atcham sent a lorry over for us for the dance. We called it the ‘passion wagon’. We danced to Glenn Miller there. And the American food! I can’t recall the details of it now, but it made our eyes pop out. We just couldn’t believe how good it was compared with what we could get for our rations. One very snowy night we were waiting for the passion wagon to arrive, so we went into the pub — the Royal Oak, I think it was — and I decided to have an egg-nog. Then, because the lorry was so late, I had a couple more, much more than I’d ever drunk before. One of my friends said I was constantly jumping up and rushing to the toilet with my hand over my mouth. But I didn’t have a hangover after it.

The worst experience then was being woken up in the middle of the night to collect the ambulance and drive a medical orderly who was going out to pick up bodies from a crashed aircraft. One night I was driving the ambulance when I saw lights flashing on the road in front of me and seven or eight soldiers with guns. At first I thought we’d been invaded. It turned out that they were commandos on an exercise. They jumped in and ordered me to drive to Llanbedr airfield, where I should drive past the guard room and stop. They piled out and captured the guard room. I told them I was supposed to be on duty somewhere else, but they told me they would square it for me.

Our uniform was a khaki cotton shirt, khaki tie, jacket, skirt — though they issued us with slacks when we were going out with a lorry or in the ambulance — lisle stockings and flat shoes. Everything was provided, even our underwear. When I was stationed at Shelton Hall, we used to take our dirty things down to a Chinese laundry at the bottom of Wyle Cop in Shrewsbury. We weren’t allowed to wear civvy clothes at all until shortly before the end of the war. We went swimming in the River Severn while we were there, only a short walk away. And we used to walk into Shrewsbury regularly for pubs and other entertainment, which was a much longer walk. Two classical musicians used to come to Shelton Hall to play for us. They were called Dobson and Young, and that’s when I fell in love with ‘Clair de Lune’. One of them taught me a valuable lesson about sticking to what you believe in. He said that when you look at a photograph that contains yourself, you are the most important person in it as far as you’re concerned. So the first thing you do is to look for yourself. He said that’s what you should always do — remember that you’re the one that matters most, to you, so don’t be swayed by other people’s opinions. Make up your own mind about whether something is right, or wrong, or good, or bad, and stick to it. And that’s what I’ve done ever since.

Petrol was rationed and so our military vehicles were speed-governed. We couldn’t go any faster than 40 mph. I was once sent to collect a brand new vehicle which hadn’t yet had its governor fitted. So I drove it at seventy in some places, and that was wonderful. One girl had to drive the General to some event, and as they were coming back, she became desperate for a pee. She apologised to him and said she wouldn’t be a minute. She jumped out of the car and went into the trees beside the road. She returned to the car and set off again. After several miles, she realised the General wasn’t in the car. Apparently he’d got out of the car shortly after her for the same reason, so she had to drive back and collect him.

I was in bed with tonsillitis in Barmouth on VE Day. When men were demobbed they were given a suit and a trilby hat. Women were given clothing coupons and we had three weeks’ paid leave. On 22nd May 1945, exactly four years to the day since I’d joined up, I was demobbed and went back to my Civil Service job in Post Office Supplies. Then I left, got married and had three children. Now we have seven grandchildren. Life’s been very good to us.

This story was collected by Genevieve Tudor and submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Brown of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Kay Hutton and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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