大象传媒

A Town Hall in London
ANNIE TOOKE kept War Diaries of London when she worked at the Town Hall on Report and Control for the Civil Service. She also kept family letters, and hopes to start up her own WW2 site.

A RADIO STATION IN WILTSHIRE
LOUISE HOWARD (nee Morris) joined the ATS and worked on the radio atation in Devises on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.There she helped run the station and plotted planes coming in to bomb Britain. She remembers taking her turn on guard duty there when she had to clean the latrines. The only way to alert people to intruders, was to ring and alarm bell. She also had to climb up and clean the radio aerials, but after a bad fall when she injured her back,and was moved to the RAOC.It was a very hard time, but she quite enjoyed the company of the people she worked with and butying her Woodbines at five for four pence, and getting paid ten shillings a week.

ALFRED WILLIAM BROOKES now lived in Earls Croome in the heart of Worcestershire. During the War he served with the 7th Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment.
He trained at Norton Barrack, Worcester and got married while he was there in 1940. His wife cycled from Earls Croome to the barracks for the wedding and paid 1/6d for the licence for the wedding in Malvern which they reached by train. He was allowed leave from 12.30 to 7.30 and the witnesses were Malverns station masters who they treated to a cream lunch and then said goodbye!
In April 1942 he left for India having worked at Brigade HQ as driver for Brigadier Hawkins.
Jungle training began in India, to combat the Japs in Singapore. He then went to Dimapor where he encoutered Japs and remembers them yelling and shouting in the jungle where they lived on bully beef and tomatoes. During the first night the sentry shouted halt the prescribed three times, but when he got no answer he fired - and shot a tiger. In Kohiman he met the Japanese and took part in the biggest battle in India. After contracting Malaria he returned to Assam and after spending three years and eight months in India and Burmah he returned home by boat - just after the Atom bombs were dropped.
He arrived in Southamptonto debark - there was no-one on the docks to give them and sort of welcome or even a cup of tea.From there he was taken to what became the SAS camp in Hereford without even the fare to get back to Worcester.

MARGARET WORKED ON WELLINGTON BOMBERS
MARGARET EADY (Nee Holliday) worked repairing Wellington Bombers at a factory near Blackpool. They had a different job each day, and had to travel to airfield and repair them after walking all the way across the field. She became expert at using spanners, screwdrivers, and welding. The facgtory was called Sparesgate where they also made new planes when they were not repairing old ones. She worked on a bench with three men for three years. She remembered people in Leyland, Lancashire working with amunition, powder filling, and their skins went yellow. They had to drink two pints of milk a day to keep healthy. So she chose to work on planes. When her mother was ill and she needed to return home to help she had to go in front of a committee and state her case before she was allowed.

I PLOTTED DOODLE-BUGS ON RADAR
EILEEN MARTIN Lived in London. Her mother died in October 1939 when she was just 16, so she looked after her young eight year old brother who was being educated in Newquay.
She worked in the West End throughout the blitz. Once in the cinema her father's name was put up onto the screen and the film was stopped. They found their home had received slight damages during an air-raid, but next door was much worse. The council propped the house up and it stayed that way until it was fixed after the war.
Her older brother went to America with the airforce and trained as a pilot and did not return until 1943.
When she was 18 Eileen joined the ATS, in January 1942 she was sent to York for four weeks trainins then on to Oswestry for a further 3 months. She became a radar operator and was sent to gun sites around Newcastle. After three years she went to Glasgow and then on back to London where she plotted V1s and V2s on radar. There was only 45 seconds until they dropped on London.
They tried to find where in France the bombs were being launched, but mostly their reports said no fixed location.
Her father remarried in 1945 and there was a new baby in the family.

LOOKED AFTER AMERICAN SOLDIERS
EMILY DENLEY now aged 91 has live in Holly Green all her life. During the was she had evacuees from Birmingham.
When they left she had American soldier billetted at her home. She worked planting potatoes and on a poultry farm for the war effort.
She has lived in the same house for 47 years, where she ran a bed and breakfast guest house after the war.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.