大象传媒

Lived in Wolverton in Buckinghamshire. I was 19 at start of war. It was not all doom and gloom and we did have a good time. Worked in office at McCorquodales the printers and had to leave when married in December 1940. Went to work at Railway Works in office of Frame Shop and they did under frames for carriages. First time women had worked on shop floor. Foreman wore a bowler hat as he was a very important person. Had lots of fun with the men who worked on the shop floor. Company contracted to repair aircraft and I transferred to that department. Worked from 9.00 鈥� 8.00 pm Monday to Thursday and 9.00 鈥� 5.30 pm on Friday and 9.00 鈥� 12.30 pm on Saturday. Factory working hours were variable as if we were busy they had to work. If we were busy it was due to lots of aircraft being damaged which was not good news. Stayed until VE Day and the job ended but as I was pregnant it worked out well for me. I said I would go to Victory Ball in May whatever happened. Had street party and food still rationed.

We spent a lot of time standing in queues during war for rations, fish etc. Sometimes buns/cakes were available on Saturday afternoons. Heard on grapevine that there was a queue and everyone would rush down and join it for whatever was on offer. Nursery would sell tomatoes and cucumbers and we would ride our bikes 6 miles to get them but not always lucky as they had run out and we would see the sign 鈥淪orry, all gone鈥�. As a treat we would go to Co-op in Northampton for afternoon tea with a cake.

Married in 1940 in turquoise suit which I still have. It was hand made by a family shop in Northampton and jacket pockets trimmed with Russian sable. The wedding cake was a small fruit but we couldn鈥檛 have icing or ornaments so the cake was encased in a silver cake frill with a doyley on top. A friend gave me a small cherub to put on top for decoration and an uncle remarked it looked like something off a child鈥檚 gravestone. We were mortified but we didn鈥檛 like to take it off as my friend was there.

Italian POWs wore brown uniform with a big yellow sun on back. They were not confined to camp as they didn鈥檛 want to escape and they would go to local cinema and dances. They always got best seats in cinema!

People were billeted onto you. Young lady, Lucy, lived with us who worked at Bletchley Park on the Enimga machine and she had lived in Bermuda. Lucy worked shifts and my mother always made sure she had a meal waiting for her whenever she returned from work. Lucy said if it ever snowed we were to wake her up as she had never seen snow before. She was amazed how soft it was as she expected it to be hard like ice.

VE bombing started in London and an aunt and cousin came to stay so we had my parents, me and my husband, Lucy plus my aunt and cousin living in the house and it was very cramped. My aunt had been a Colonel鈥檚 lady in India and treated us as if she was still living there and expected everyone to wait on her.

My husband was a toolmaker at Vauxhall. He wanted to sign on as an air gunner but couldn鈥檛 be released from his work. He drove to Luton from Wolverton as he had a fuel allowance as his trade was needed for tanks and lorries.

A Home Guard was formed at Railway Works (B Company) and I was asked by my boss to be the clerk and I asked a cousin to help. We were the only two women in the group. Members had to practice rifle shooting and needed to guard Railway Works, main line railway, canal and River Ouse. Freight went on canal to and from Birmingham and London and two women worked one of the barges and we got to know them very well. Home guard had rosters to do work and my cousin and I went along to help and also to make hot drinks for them.

There was a man at the Queens Head at Olney who was just like the spiv character from Dad鈥檚 Army and he could get anything you wanted, including underwear made from parachute silk. I remember him shooting a swan by mistake and then ate it which shocked us all. When Americans came they would give us tins of fruit and meat. Also had stockings towards end of war. Had painted our legs with a line at back in mascara to make it look as though we were wearing stockings until then.

Glen Miller was stationed at Chicksands and played at Corn Exchange in Bedford so I danced to him a lot. We would cycle to Bedford and leave our bikes outside and never worried about them being stolen.

My uncle was a professional soldier and served in WW1 and he also went to Dunkirk in WW2.

On Sunday radio always had religious or serious programmes on but during war they introduced entertainment programmes in the evening with Itma and Much binding in the Marsh etc. The anthems of the allies were always played on Sunday night and we could sing all the tunes.

The services were allocated 4 Red Cross letters per year with 25 words on each to send to family to keep in touch.

My brother-in-law, who was an agricultural engineer, had a fuel allowance and would sometimes take us on his round of farms in the area on a Sunday and we would go over a bridge and see a shop and they used to put a large sign on the roof to indicate if they had ice cream or sweets available.

I had a Danish penfriend from school days called Fritz. His country was occupied and I didn鈥檛 hear from him for a very long time. After the war he wrote again and said he had been working on the railways and tried to sabotage them. His mother had looked out of kitchen window and saw lots of soldiers coming out of woods 鈥� very frightening moment.

My aunt and uncle in Coventry suffered terribly in the blitz and she told us the Ps and Gs were gong all night 鈥� she meant planes and guns. From Wolverton we could see glow of Coventry Cathedral when it was bombed. We were on flight path and could recognise the bombers from the sound.

Cousin was unmarried and in her 30s and when the Canadian soldiers came to Wolverton on way to France they were stationed in a field at the end of the cul-de-sac where she lived and the residents would prepare breakfast for the soldiers. My cousin got on well with one of the soldiers and they eventually married and she went to live in Canada and was welcomed into a settler family which had a special status in the town they lived. All our family went to Southampton to see them off on Queen Mary and as the band played we all wept.

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