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At the start of the war we were all issued with gas masks. People with gardens were issued with Anderson Shelters, which they dug in and trooped in at night and slept in them.

Worked in East London in the civil service, but lived in the North West near Wembley. On my way through London to and from work I saw Ambulances and firemen caring for people. Demolition men knocking walls down to make them safe. People terrified carrying their children, pets and blankets being herded in to schools, community buildings, churches anywhere they could find refuge. Total devastation-terrible.

On the tube (coming home) would see people queuing up for Iron bunks on the station platform, with their families, pets and blankets. The tube would still be running so how they got to sleep I don’t know!

An unexploded bomb dropped in my street and we were evacuated to live in a church on mattresses for a week until the street was made safe.

One of the saddest sites to see was little children herded together with their gas masks and mothers crying as they were separated and the children waiting to be evacuated in the country.

You would learn to recognise the different sounds either those of a-bomb or plane [V1 Bombs (Doodlebug) V2 Rockets].
The sirens would go and everyone would dive for cover. After a while everyone would emerge at the all clear.

Would go to work and find people missing and then later on you would learn they had been killed. As a member of the civil service I had a reserved occupation but chose the enlist anyway.

I Joined the air force from Astral House,
a recruitment centre in London. I was then posted to Gloucester, Insworth Lane, for square bashing, which involved, learning the basics, how to salute, marching etc.

Sent to Melksham, Hendesford and undertook a course in sparking plug testing and from there remusterd and took a course a Farnborough to learn photography and passed out as a photographer following a three month course.

Panchromatic film took the finest pictures so that every detail could be seen

Orthochromatic film -ordinary clear days.

Infa red film- when it was misty.

Involving different lighting during the development process.

This would take place at all action stations. I learnt to use an American camera called a Speedgraphic down to a thousand of a second so that you could take any moving object take a sharp image of whatever the subjects speed and still it would be a stock-still photograph.

Following this I was posted to Kinloss in Scotland on a Blenheim bombers site. I used to fit a huge camera on the base of the plane. This plane would take off and take aerial photos. I would then develop the films which involved 120 pictures these would then be made in to a mosaic. I would then take a photograph of the mosaic with a tripod camera, which was then printed and sent in to the briefing room for the ‘bigwigs’ to decide on targets to bomb.

I was then told that I was being posted a fighter squadron On Mosquitoes nicknamed by pilots the flying coffin. I had to climb on to the wing of the plane and in to the cockpit and fit the 8mm camera in to the nose of the plane which was then synchronised with the guns set by the armourers. When the pilot fired the gun the camera would go off at the same time and if the target was hit it would register in the film, which would then be sent to air ministry who would run the film through and some would go on the news. If the plane exploded it was a ‘definite’ and if it just went in smoke and out of the film it would be a ‘probable’ as there was a chance the men survived.

I was then posted to Jurby on the Isle of Man, OCTU (Officer Cadet Training Unit).

It was my job to take a photograph before the men passed out as air crew. Ther was a pile of jazzy ties which the men had to don to replace their regulation black one to make them look like civilians. I would Take three photographs, front face, side face, and half profile, which were passport size. these would be sewn in to there epaulets in case they came down in a country where they required a new passport. The different types of photo would satisfy any countries passport regulations. This helped a lot of men escape with false passports helped by the under ground movement of different countries.

The poles who were based at Jurby were such daredevils they didn’t care whether they lived or died. They had lost so much in Poland that they used to take the planes up and swoop down consequently crashing sometimes Snaefell mountain. Clouds would be down and the poles would crash the planes in to the mountain. Nearly every week there would be a funeral. Scottish pipers would march through the camp with draped drums plating a dirge so that you knew another ‘idiot’ had gone in to the mountain.

While I was in Scotland a Meschersmitz trailed our returning bombers and came in on the flare path and shot up the whole camp dropping butterfly bombs, which was pretty frightening.

I was then posted to Swanton Morley where I worked on a new project called Window research (code name. This involved metallic streamers on little cotton parachutes. They dropped these, which cut off the radar so the Germans couldn’t attack our planes in the air on a cloudy day.

Out of the briefing room pilots would sit outside waiting for instructions and you would say good luck as we passed by. You would count them as they went up and again when they came back, and probably there would be some missing, they would have ‘gone for a burton’.

One pilot insisted on taking his brown Labrador on take off- the dog loved it.

I loved every minute of the job. I had no fear because in those days accepted everything. I went in as an Aircraft Women and passed out as a LACW (Leading Aircraft Woman) on my photography course. One of my fondest memories was the weekly dance that happened at every station. This was always great fun. We learnt, how to fence, shoot, played table tennis, danced, swim. A lot of things were open to forces such as the Salvation Army, Toc H, church rooms where we could get cheap meals and have a gossip.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. I loved it.

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