大象传媒

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by Janette Hill of Age Concern Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, on behalf of Freda Green, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.)

I was born in Portsmouth and at the start of the war was working in Southsea in a photographer's. This ended when the apprentice went to lunch and was bombed and gassed and she was killed in a cellar.

My family then moved to Petersfield for safety, letting our house, because my mother had scalded her leg with a flask of tea whilst going into the shelter and then had to stay in the house instead.

I wanted to join the Air Force, but failed because I was just half an inch too short to be a tele-operator in Signals! After writing to the Admiralty, they accepted me six weeks later. I was stationed partly at Croydon, where there was a lot of bombing.
One night I was on duty alone with a wireless operator, who came in drunk and got rather fresh - but I told him to go to sleep. Then a big black dog suddenly appeared at the door and shared my sandwiches. Later, someone demanded to know why the wireless operator wasn't taking messages - so I told them!

Once I was asleep in our allotted house with the doors open. At 3.00 in the morning I was awakened, and half-dressed in my camiknickers - when a male officer came in! Thankfully he just told me to continue my sleep.

One day I was out with a girl friend when we met two soldiers, so we asked them if they knew where there was a dance. They didn't know of anything, but asked us for a cup of tea instead. Afterwards I had to get back home on a train full of soldiers, and had them all laughing. One of those we had met earlier wanted to see me again, so we went to the cinema and saw 'When we are married'. I continued going out with him -and we were married in 1942.

From Croydon I was sent to Gloucester, where I stayed till the end of the war - a better place to be, and my husband was
there also.

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