大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the site by Chloe Broadley on behalf of Sadie Saunders and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Even at seventeen, lively and fashion conscious, Jean was intensely patriotic. Knowing that war was inevitable, she joined the Territorial Army. A few days before September 3rd she was called up to the A.T.S.
She served first in an Ack-Ack battery in London, but was soon put into office work, her civilian occupation. She always looked pretty and smart even in the ghastly khaki uniform, and her drive and efficiency got her rapid promotion to sergeant, in charge of the offices of several high-ranking A.T.S. officers in various locations in london. About this time she met Allan Brayley: he was in the R.A.S.C. and had been wounded at Dunkirk. They were married on April 29th 1943.
They worked in London all through the Blitz and the Doodlebugs, remaining smart and sophisticated throughout. They were the first pair to move into some new quarters for serving married couples in Knightsbridge, their picture was in the London evening papers, Allan sitting in an easy chair and Jean perched on the arm. This was towards the end of the war: by V.J. Day Jean had been demobbed, as she was expecting their first child, Eleanor, born at the end of that year.

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