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FROM BATH TO HAMPSTEAD

On the first night of the Blitz, I was living at home in Bath with my parents when a bomb was dropped which landed in our back garden. We were sheltering in the house, dad under the table and me and mum under a blanket on the sofa, luckily for us it did not explode. It really shook the house which felt like it was moving out of its foundations — the bomb weighed one and a quarter tons! We had to move out for the bomb to be recovered — the first night was spent on a bus in ‘Sally In The Woods’. Wimpy were building in Avoncliffe and had built accommodation for their workforce, we were put up there for several weeks until it was safe to return.

A month after my 21st birthday I was called up in the ATS. After training in North Wales, I was attached to an Army unit - No 8 WOSB — and sent to Spedan Towers in Hampstead. This was a rather grand house which belonged to the John Lewis family. The girls were accommodated in flats over the garages but if there was an air-raid, then we had to go into the house and shelter in the billiards room I was a clerk in the office working for the War Office Selection Board and one of my tasks was to send out joining instructions to men from the other ranks who were potential officer material. They came for three days and whilst these men were there, they were treated as officers, living in the big house. They had to undertake various tests and were seen by a psychiatrist and a psychologist to see if they were of suitable material. They also had to do the normal soldiering things, like the assault course — us girls had to go over it too! I sometimes worked in Regents Park Barracks as well.

There was and Ack Ack battery on Hampstead Heath, protected with a Barrage Balloon which was shot down one night. It landed ablaze in the drive of the house and we frantically tried to get the stirrup pump working to put it out. In the end the fire engine arrived and the firemen extinguished it. The Captain in charge took the firemen in to the house and gave them a slap up breakfast. We watched the doodlebugs go over the house and a V2 rocket came down nearby in Finchley Road, near to John Barnes. We were still there for VE day and a great bonfire was lit on the Heath. It was so lovely not to have to black out everywhere. It used to cost us 4d to travel from Hampstead to Trafalgar Square on the tube.

It was whilst at Hampstead that I met my husband who was working in Spedan Towers too. He came from Felixstowe and so that is where we settled. I also met a lifelong friend there, her name was Joan Rose and for some reason we called her Jonny. We kept in touch with her and her family, in fact I spoke to her near to the VE Celebration day this year

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