大象传媒

CALLED UP TO THE ATS

Although brought up in Middlesbrough, during the war I was working in Harrogate in the Accountant General's Department, whose offices had been evacuated from London because of The Blitz, when I was called up into the ATS in November 1942. My basic training course was at Ripley Barracks, Lancaster. It is amazing how few people today know what ATS stood for, especially the Media, who should know better I am sorry to say. We have heard many funny and sometimes derogatory versions of what it was thought to be. In WW1 the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was formed from various other women's voluntary organisations such as the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, ambulance drivers and clerks. On the 3rd September 1938 the WAAC became know as the Auxiliary Territorial Service; women who served in many military capacities. After the war the name reverted to the origianl except it now added 'Royal' ~ Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC), a great honour. Sadly the Corps was a victim of the army re-organisation and was disbanded in 1993 and the women became part of the Army and joined the Regiments alongside the men. The WRAC motto was 'suaviter in modo; fortiter in re' ~ 'Gentle in manner; resolute in deed'. An apt description I think. General Sir Robert Adam in his introduction to the book, 'The Women's Army Corps' written by Shelford Bidwell in 1977 said of the women . . . '(their) vital work which helped us to victory in both world wars'.

After basic training I mustered into the Royal Corps of Signals and was due to go to Putney on a Teleprinter course. Unfortunately I had enteritis and missed the posting. On return to Ripley from hospital I re-mustered into the Royal Engineers Postal Service and left for the Home Postal Centre (HPC) in Nottingham in January 1943. The Army Postal Service played a very vital part in time of war, helping to keep up the morale of the servicemen who were fighting in all parts of the globe. It has never been given the credit due to it, even though both men and women postal workers lost their lives in the course of their duties, both in this country, due to enemy bombing and overseas. General Montgomery was heard to say that his soldiers could march for three or four days without food on the strength of one letter from home. During 1939-1945 over 5,000 men and women (REPS and five companies of ATS) worked in the various offices in Nottingham and although the fact that it was supposed to be highly secret, I'm sure everyone in the city knew what we were doing. Many people in the city welcomed us into their homes for a little TLC (tender loving care) and we can never forget their kindness.

WORKING AT 'HICKINGS' IN NOTTINGHAM

After six weeks training we girls of the new intake were put to work in different offices around the city, sorting the millions of letters and parcels. I was employed in Hickings, an old lace factory which the Army had commandeered. In the basement, white camouflage nets for the Russian front were being made and the steam rose up through the floorboards of the ground floor, making a terrible smell! This office was situated on London Road, opposite the canal, city incinerator and Notts. County football ground, where I sometimes went with a friend to watch play. The mail being sorted here was Army and Air Force surface and airmal letters to the various battle zones overseas in Italy, Africa, Middle and Far East, India and Burma, as well as the many small outposts such as the Falklands, Christmas Island, Faroes, Iceland and other such places. Wherever there was a service man there would be a Field Post Office. The Royal navy's mail was dealt with by its own Postal Service.

In the office we were under the command of the REPS officers and NCOs (Non Commissioned Officers) but out of the office our own ATS Amdin. Officers were responsible for dealing with our well being and meting out punishment to those who offended, such as not wearing our caps outside or failing to salute an officer. We were under the same regulations as the men ~ no relaxing rules because we were the fairer sex! After kit inspections where missing articles had to be explained, there would be a few of us on 'jankers', i.e. confined to the billets after work and given domestic tasks to do. Sometimes there would be a conflict of opinion between the male and female officers, but generally it worked well.

LOCATION'S SECTION ~ HIGHTLY SECRET WORK

Another building commandeered by the Army Post Office (APO) was the Vyella factory, newly built just before the war. There were several other buildings all over the city, where the girls worked night and day on parcels mail. The girls found it difficult to flick parcels into the correct gaping open mouths of the mail bags which hung on huge frames and they spent some time in getting it right, but as usual, in the end they were more dexterous than the men. There were also some specialised smaller offices dealing with registered mail and parcels not properly packed. These last would be repacked and sent on their way. The saddest job was returning mail to the next of kin of servicemen who had lost their lives in the fighting or on troop ships lost at sea, in particular after the debacle in Malaya and Singapore in early 1942. Mail that was already on its way by ship had to be returned to Nottingham and the said task of sending mail back to next of kin with covering letters was a particularly harrowing job.

Another office was the Location's Section, which was highly secret work. This was where details of the movement and whereabouts of every unit in the British Army were kept and only a few people worked there. Information would come in from the War Office and Air Ministry and the Postal Section HQ of the various expenditionary forces. A second set was kept elesewhere in case of loss in Nottingham. When a draft was about to be sent overseas the men were given a code (known as the Draft Indices) which was printed onto their kit bags and only those officers in Locations knew for which theatre of war the code stood. Until the troops landed they could only guess at where they were going, but mail arrived at the same place with them. This job was voluntary as the work carried great responsibility and the small office had no windows, one heavily locked door and was like Colditz to get in and out ~ even having to be locked out and back in for a toilet visit, having first gained permission to go! I was offered work here but turned it down; as though it carried Sergeant's rank I would have felt too claustrophobic.

THE ACTUAL WORK I DID

We girls in the letter office worked three shifts through 24 hours so we worked nights every three weeks. My section was billeted in what had been large private houses built just before the war, again commandeered by the Army, what happened to the owners we did not know. Were they ever compensated? I hope so. The area at West Bridgford was near to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and our mess was in the Cricket Pavilion, our medical room in the commentator's box and worst sacrilege of all, we drilled on the hallowed turf! What would Denis Compton et al have thought of that? The mess used by those at Vyella office when on night duty, was in the basement of the Palais de Dance, a well known Mecca in the city. It seemed strange to be eating dinner in the middle of the night where perhaps some of us had been dancing a few hours earlier!

At Hickings, the office was as busy as a beehive and closely resembled one, with hundreds of pigeon holes stacked with letters. Each 'frame' held around 48 pigeon holes and about 10 frames to a 'road' as each aisle was called. Each hole was labelled with names and number of the respective Regiments, Squadrons and units, within a frame which would be designated to a particular destination. All areas of ward had different coloured labels. During training, each of us was responsible for one frame and we new girls started quite slowly, until we were able to hit the right 'hole' practically blindfolded. Our speed going from about 200 an hour until we reached the desired 1,000 items an hour, with a target of 8,000 per shift. As we became proficient and passed the test to become postal workers first class, our pay was raised from the basic shilling (5 pence) a day to 12 shillings a week (60 pence). Sometimes we worked on the 'airmail letters' roads' and at other times the surface mail if a dispatch was imminent.

Every so often there would be a shout from a Senior NCO 'Mail going out, get moving!'. This meant surface or airmail was going out in, say, two hours and then we all had to work at top speed to get all the mail sorted, tied in bundles and labelled. We were continually harassed by the male NCOs to work even faster and woe betide any slackers. I learned a lot of words I had previously never known! From each pigeon hole the hundles were tied with string and labelled, thrown into a skip and then re-sorted into relevant destination mail bags by the men, then sacks tied and sealed with lead seals and then onto the trucks waiting to take the outgoing mail to either of two rail stations in the city. The men had to wait for a specific train and load the sacks into the parcels van and pick up more incoming mail from the civil post offices around the country. So it all started again. Airmail in those days went down to an airfield in Eastleigh, Hampshire and from there flown to which ever country that particular mail was destined. The surface mail went to either the ports of Liverpool or Glasgow, depending on the destination overseas. About this time we were issued with battle dress top and trousers, which were much more comfortable to work in than the regular service dress.

TRANSFERRED TO THE MISCELLANEOUS SECTION

After some weeks I was transferred from general sorting to Miscellaneous Section on a specialised job on what was called the Civil Road, to replace a sapper who was going overseas. He was not particularly enthusiastic about teaching me the work he had been doing, but some months later I received a pair of wooden soled sandals sent from him out in Egypt! My job entailed sorting mail for some of the more obscure places in the world as well as civil and naval mail which had been mis-sorted to the HPO. It was a day job so I did not have to work nights. When the tide of war began to go our way, we ATS girls were medically examined for overseas duties. I passed A1 but because I was my widowed Mother's only support I was not allowed to go, much to my disappointment.

Christmas time was always terribly busy and our hours on shifts would be extended, but we sang as we worked and knew that what we were doing would be appreciated by the thousands of men and women overseas, who were unable to share the holiday with their families. Some weeks before 'D' Day all leave was cancelled and we knew something big was going to happen. A few days before June 6th some of us were transferred to the office at Vyella where all the British Land Army (BLA) mail for Europe was to be sorted. Incidentally, REPS sappers and the letters for the men who landed on the beaches on 'D' Day were already aboard the ships the night before, landed on the evening of 'D' Day and distributed to the men on the following day. Sadly there were some casualties.

AMOUNT OF MAIL IN 1944 AND SONGS WE SANG

We girls worked up to 13 hour shifts sorting the millions of pieces of mail; it seemed like a never ending task as the piles of letters in front of us never seemed to get any smaller. As one got through a row, another two would be piled on top, every one of which had to be cleared for an outgoing mail call. As I was only just over 5' tall it took me all my time to see over the top of the pile. In 1944, 3,000 men and women despatched 340 million letters, 95 million packets and newspapers and 13 million parcels in two and a half million bags to the troops overseas. Both offices had Rediffusion relaying the 大象传媒 Worker's Playtime programme, Radio Luxenbourg and later the American Forces Radio Networks (AFN Munich and Stuttgart) on the continent, so we knew all the latest pop songs and sang along with such people as Vera Lynn, Ann Shelton, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and all the other pop singers of the day. It certainly helped to relieve a rather monotonous job. We were visited by the Postal Unit's Colonel, at that time Colonel Ross, who came especially to thank the girls for their great effort and long hours put in. I remember saying that we really did not have much choice, but nevertheless we appreciated his words.

PROMOTED TO LANCE CORPORAL

As things settled down after the initial heavy mails, we from Hickings returned to our own jobs and in my case, the familiar routine of working with mail going out to unfamiliar palces. Even now I can remember some of the destinations in the Sudan, West Africa, India, etc. Names which previously I had only heard of in Geography lessons at school. At this time, for reasosn unknown to me, I was promoted to the dizzy rank of Lance Corporal and was put in charge of the Miscellaneous Section, a cause of amusement for all 20 of us as we were friends and I was given no training for command. The morning parade in the office was like something out of 'Dad's Army'. I never know what reply I would get from some of the girls. It certainly would not have gone down well with our female officers, had they been there. As for our male officers, they mostly ignored us so long as we did the work, only the NCOs treated us the same as the men and could be terrifying! We hated 'em! One Regimental Sergeant Major, a Scot with red hair, could be particularly obnoxious, but not with the girls, with whom he was firm but fair. If he caught one of us slacking he would say, "Noo then, wot yet doin', standin' there wi yet knittin', get sortin'". We of course were definitley not knitting, as there were no seats ~ we stood for the whole eight hour shift, except for breaks at lunch or dinner time.

OFF DUTY HOURS

Our off duty hours were well catered for. We had our own ATS Pipe and Drum Band who marched with us on special parades. One of my friends who was in the band told me that she only joined to get time off for practise and that in civilian life she had never played any instrument. Never the less they did a good job and were always smartly turned out. We also had a very good dance band formed by a few men who had played in dance bands pre-war. Bob Whitham, who had been a civil post office counter clerk, composed music and lyrics for our own concert party and had one of his songs recorded by Billy Mayerl's band, a popular dance orchestra of the day. I still have the old 78 recording of 'The Trees in Grosvenor Square' sung by Rita Williams. The leader, who was a saxophonist and pianist, was Corporal George Carver, a native of Newcastle, who was also my boss at work. My late husband and I kept in touch with George and his wife until recently when sadly, George died too. Some of the girls were very good singers and dancers and along with some of the sappers put on really professional concerts for us. There were also Sports Clubs for the men and girls and football and cricket teams. We had plenty of cinemas and a good theatre to visit, as well as the dance halls in the city and as two of my friends and I had our bicycles with us, we often went for cycle rides out into the lovely Nottinghamshire countryside.

(Continued in 'THE ARMY POST OFFICE IN WW2 ~ AFTER VE DAY)

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