大象传媒

Prior to the War, I was a fine arts student in Newcastle. My friemd and I endeavoured to join the WAF pre-war and eventually the 32nd OTU was formed and we joined. Just the night before war was declared we had a meeting and were told to meet the following day at a point and were actually walking down the main street of a headquarters when sirens blew and we duly signed papers to join the WAF. Facing the table for enrolment we were asked what profession we had and we said 'art students' and the reply was 'you'd better be cooks!'. However, later on my friend and I were seconded to do radar and were stationed around the coast. In 1944, I was stationed in the south coast of England, near Bournemouth and duly went on duty at 8.00 on the morning of the invasion. I had missed the actual movement out for the invasion which had take place two hours earlier, at 6.00. It was an extremely busy time, we worked hard that day, oh crikey, and interesting. The pilots from the nearby airfield flying in and out flew between searchlights to give identification. In actual fact we could hear the bombs and big guns being fired in the invasion area because the distance between Bournemouth and Cherbourg is not very great.

Later on, in the course of my duties, I was stationed in Belgium and was able to go down to Paris for a few days. A friend of mine was stationed in Versailles and she took me to dine in the american officers mess in the Petit Trianon. We were served roast beef with raw cabbage and tinned pear on a plate. It was delicious!

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