大象传媒

War Memories of Mrs Barbara Barnes

In September 1939 I visited an uncle and aunt in Leeds. Whilst there I visited a recruiting office and asked if I could join the ATS as a driver. I had taken my test some fifteen months previously and I loved driving. The lady suggested that I joined the FANYs and drove for them. As long as I drove I didn鈥檛鈥� mind under what name.

Very soon, by October that same aunt and another uncle, both JPs, sponsored me. I hadn鈥檛 said anything to Daddy about joining up (or Mother when I was in Leeds), so it must have come as quite a surprise to them. I don鈥檛 remember them objecting at all. Anyway, in October I went to Penn House in York, but I was not officially in the army. That had to wait until January 1940, when I took a training course at Beaufront, Portsmouth Road, Camberley. I learnt to drive ambulances, 30 cwts and 15 cwts (it might have been 3 tons), no I think it was 15 cwts. By then I had my ATS uniform, but because I had been a FANY (the FANYs amalgamated with the ATS in February/March, I think, 1940), on my ATS uniform I was allowed to have a FANY flash on the top of my sleeve. It was in red lettering on a sort of beige background and it said 鈥淔ANY鈥� and underneath 鈥淲omen鈥檚 Transport Service鈥�. I was also allowed to wear the strap over the top of my cap rather than on the front, which the other ATS people did. I bought my FANY uniform fairly early on, certainly during those years at York. It was barathea, tailor-made. It was very smart indeed. I subsequently wore it three or four years later when it was my going away outfit. I had a Sam Brown leather belt with a big buckle, which had two prongs on it and a leather strap on my cap. I think the badge was different on the front of the strap.

Of course another thing we had to do, which I haven鈥檛 mentioned yet, was clean our buttons on our uniforms (which I think was every day). We used a button stick, which was a piece of brass metal with different slots in it. You put these slots around the button and then cleaned it. The metal must have been two inches wide so that you then didn鈥檛 get brasso all over your uniform. Buttons wore down quite a lot over the years. They had 鈥淕R鈥� on them and the King鈥檚 crown. I don鈥檛 know whether it was the royal insignia, or what it was. This was a job we had to carry out on our ordinary uniforms and our belts certainly shone because I would spit and polish that. I had nice brown leather shoes as well, rather than the ordinary army issue ones. All this is digressing. Of course I loved my FANY uniform but I also had poplin shirts and a Van Heusen collar, which was extremely smart.

Back to Penn House in York when I first joined - We had to have a day in the kitchen there. I don鈥檛 know how the food arrived but it was cooking for about 30 or 40 people. Goodness me that takes me forward 60 years to when I cooked for Age Concern where I was cooking for about that amount of people. We had steak and kidney puddings, chickens, roast beef and cream, half gallons or something of cream everyday to go with our pud! I remember the cooking, but I can鈥檛 remember much of the washing up. Other days I would have to drive Mr Brown in York, in his Rover. This is because I was not yet in the army officially. We used to drive most days, as far as I remember, 100 miles, 200, 300. One day it was even 400 miles and in 1940 that was a long way. I started at 10.00am in the morning. We went to Newcastle from York and then across to Lancaster. We stopped somewhere for dinner and then stayed in a hotel. I don鈥檛 really remember where we stayed, but I think we did 398 miles. I said to Mr Brown the next day 鈥淥h I wish we could have just done that extra two miles. How wonderful to do four hundred miles in a day鈥�. I think it was also in those days that I used to go to Fulford Barracks and learn to do maintenance on the cars. Not on Mr Brown鈥檚 car but I was still learning.

In about January 1940 I went to Camberley, which was the ATS Transport Training Centre. Then I just learnt driving on the big vehicles. Back to York again where I was then allowed to drive the army vehicles. I remember driving Brigadier Hay, who was a dear. I picked him up at his hotel. His wife was a lovely, fat woman. She was a dear. They were both lovely indeed. He called me Lady Byass, I can鈥檛 think why. Another man I drove was Colonel Tozer, who possibly a year later asked me to be his driver in Lincolnshire. That was in a Humber. He had a Rolls Royce. Once he allowed me to drive his Rolls Royce and on the wonderful straight roads of Lincolnshire. Once I reached 100 miles per hour and that was going! I should think that 30 or 40 miles per hours was the top speed of the Humber, which I drove normally.

I was billeted at a farm with two other ATS drivers, who must also have been driving for people in the Lincolnshire division. We had to cook for ourselves after a time because the farmer鈥檚 wife got scarlet fever and we were moved out of the main house into a cottage on the farm, which hadn鈥檛 been lived in for some time. We had beds and things, but we didn鈥檛 have a table. We had wooden orange boxes we had to use to eat off. I think that there must have been an open fire as we collected wood. They must have lent us some pots and pans as well. I remember one day going out into the garden and finding some carrots. It was during the winter. Finding a few carrots, some potatoes and leeks 鈥� cooking those and making a cheese sauce, which was very good indeed.

Another posting was to Northampton, which fortunately was only for about three months. This was driving ambulances. Sometimes they were the fairly big ambulances but more often than not it was a small one with a canvas covered back to it, with two canvas stretchers on each side of the back. If the patients weren鈥檛 desperately ill I expect that by the time I had finished driving them they weren鈥檛 feeling as well as they were to start with. There were three of us billeted there again. One was always billeted in threes. I鈥檓 not sure why, maybe it was safety in numbers. Manora Davidson was one of the girls there, who I thought was a beauty. She had the bluest of blue eyes and very dark hair, which she wore in a page boy fashion. It had to be above the collar. It wasn鈥檛 allowed to touch the collar. I wore mine in the page boy fashion too and we were known as 鈥渢he heavenly twins鈥�.

I had another posting in the Yorkshire Division, where I was billeted with Uncle Harry and Auntie Kate. They were my first sponsors. Mother鈥檚 sister was Auntie Kate. This was only about four miles from Eastfield, but it was nearer to the headquarters where I was driving a Major Ray (something or other). That was in a Vauxhall because he wasn鈥檛 as important as the colonels and brigadiers whom I had been driving.

I think it was soon after this time that I went back to Camberley as a driving instructor. I was then a lance corporal. We lived in Nissan huts in the grounds of a big house, which was used for the officers to sleep in. There was also the orderly room and mess for the officers. The cookhouse I remember quite well. At the one side of it was a big cast iron stove and great big deep sinks. At the other side were tables and benches. There was a wooden table of course as there was no plastic around in those days. We queued up to have our food doled out to us on our plates. We had our own knife, fork and spoon (KFS), which we had to guard with our lives. I think we had our names on them, but it was only on a piece of sticky tape. As we went out of the cookhouse after eating our food, which I think was quite good, we then dumped our KFS and plate in a hot, soapy sink and then afterwards in a cold sink. By the time the last people had got there it was a cold washing sink and a very greasy one to rinse your plates in, which were then put in a rack and left for the flies to settle on and everything before our next meal. There wasn鈥檛 any food poisoning.

We slept in Nissan huts as well. I don鈥檛 know how many beds, twenty possibly with ten on each side, with a cast iron stove at one side of the hut. The chimney would go up through the roof. If it had been raining our clothes were pretty wet. We had ground sheets as capes, just a piece of mackintosh, camouflaged, which was about six by three long and then another piece that was stuck on the end of it which would be three/three, and then there was a collar. When you put it around you most of the shoulders were covered, but it did mean that you could use it as a ground sheet as well. The beds were just cast iron beds with three bits of separate mattress (they were called biscuits), which each morning had to be piled up at the end of the bed. The blankets were grey army blankets. We had sheets and pillowcases as well, but these had to come off, sheets, blankets and everything were folded up and in the correct way. There wasn鈥檛 just any old way of folding up your bedding. That was piled up at the end of the bed on these three mattresses and you stood by the end of the bed and waited for the sergeant, corporal or orderly officer to come and inspect every morning. Then every night at the end of driving instruction, drill, or whatever you had been doing we had to make our beds. If it had been wet there was string strung across the Nissan huts. I don鈥檛 know how it was attached 鈥� there must have been some wood somewhere. Dripping clothes and shoes would be all around the stove to try and get them dry by the next morning.

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