大象传媒

I was posted to Balloon Command/ Balloon Centre, Stanmore. Joyce Hall, I think went to Horsham St Faith, Norfolk, Bomber Command. It is now Norwich Airport and of course, is much bigger now. We wrote to each other to start with but we never met again.

I was once again in billets, three of us together, and I had a happy friendship with a girl called Doreen Beer, who came from Devonshire. Her parents had a farm and somehow rationing did not seem to affect them as she received some nice food parcels, home-made cakes and biscuits, from time to time which we shared.

We had a young officer, known as Sports Officer and she organised hockey and netball matches in our free time, we didn鈥檛 work 24 hours a day! We did have certain days off for recreation and Doreen and I played both hockey and netball for the camp team as we were quite good players. So at certain weekends we travelled to other camps, or they came to us for a match. I expect there was a cup, or something similar, to be won at the end of the season but I forget if this was so.

As I was a shorthand typist as well as a clerk/accountant, the Squadron Leader in charge of the unit used me as his secretary, which was much less boring than dealing with figures all day.

However it was not always a bed of roses because Balloon Command at that time was very busy due to the intensive daylight raids on London which continued at night for many months. Air raid warnings by night and day were frequent. The balloons were in constant use, coupled with gun fire and search lights, the noise of fire engines and ambulance sirens was regarded as the norm. There was much damage and civilian casualties were high.

My sister had now joined the WAAF and we were hoping at some time to get together. My younger brother had enlisted in the RAF as Air Crew and was under training as a Flight Engineer. It must have been a worrying time for my parents to have all three of their children in the services and this worry was shared by many many families.

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