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ATS Auxiliary ATS Auxiliary Territorial Service — Mrs Graham (during the War Mrs Graham was Cpl Ashdown)

War was declared after I joined the Army, I joined the army before War was declared because my father was a Naval Officer and the Wrens had not yet been formed, but the Auxiliary Territorial service was formed and my company was formed the 7th Hampshire Auxiliary Territorial Service was formed Christmas week 1938 and I joined on the 14 February 1939 and we were affiliated to the 48th Searchlight regiment Royal Engineers which was afterwards changed to the 48th Ak Ak Battalion RA. We mobilised, I was a key woman responsible for calling up the girls who had joined the service who lived in adjacent districts our drill hall was in Portsmouth but I lived over the top of Portsdown Hill at Purbrook and was responsible for calling up the girls at Cosham and Waterlooville, Hampshire. If another key woman was away at Cowplain I had to call up her girls as well.

Originally we were called up a week before the war started but it was found that we had no billet arranged, so I had to tell all the girls not to come and some of them had already given up their jobs the next call came on the 3 September 1939 when war had been declared on the radio on Sunday morning and the village policeman called at my home at teatime and said I had to call up the girls, the first bicycle I could borrow was a racing bicycle with a high saddle and drop handlebars, and I had to cycle up and down Portsdown Hill telling the girls to mobilise at the drill hall in Portsmouth at 9 o’clock the next morning. They all turned up some of the girls were sent to Newport, Isle of Wight, some went to Botley near Southampton and some of the other to Lyndhurst in the New Forest and other to Westbourne near Emsworth in Hampshire, I went to Westbourne.

Before we mobilise we were given lectures in the drill hall about things like hygiene in the camp and our Company Commander a Mrs Stalward went to Southampton to get uniforms for the girls because we were going to parade before Lady Jean Pethick who had come to talk to us there weren’t enough uniforms so the girls who had them stood in the front row and those without stood in the rear row in those days they formed two’s and not three’s for marching. Lady Jean Pethick arrived in uniform but she had lost an important letter and asked us to look for it and she later discovered it in her knitting bag. She talked to us about glad she was her daughter had taken her gum boots to camp.

When I mobilised and went to Westbourne near Emsworth I caught a train at Cosham and went to Emsworth station and rode my bicycle to Westbourne. There were eight girls six of them were billeted with Mrs Close at Deepsrings, Westbourne. We had our meals in a scout hut in the grounds of her house Deepsprings and we were waited on by a housekeeper and a house parlour maid who wore little lace aprons and little lace caps and had a strip of velvet round their necks and at 9 o’clock in the evening we would go in with Mrs Close to hear the 9 o’clock news. She smoked cheroots in a holder and she handed us round her Turkish cigarettes. They had bought new blankets and sheets because they though the people coming to be billeted were expectant mothers, but they had us ATS. I was a Corporal and it was my duty to march the squad in and out of camp and give them the eyes right and the eyes front. I was a telephonist and we had what was called a field concentrator it was a box like instrument about a couple of feet long, a couple of feet wide and a foot high you had to turn a handle and push down a key to get section headquarters. There were four section headquarters but they would put two sections on one line and it depended how many times you turned the handle at the right hand end of the concentrator which section you got and we had telephone messages telling us to let the sections know about parachute, mines, and smoke flares and things like that.

I was transferred from Westbourne to Botley near Southampton and there was quite a lot of bombing there, they bombed Bursledon and ships in the harbour towards Southampton and when we took cover in the air raid shelter the cooks used to take a handle each of a zinc bath full of potatoes that they had to peel and take it to the shelter with them. At one time I was given a tetanus injection TT and what they called TAB in the other arm and we at that time people were excused duties for 48 hours, because I had to go to the air raid shelter I was trussed up like a chicken wearing a gas cape, a respirator at the alert and wearing a tin hat, then they took me back to the hut and dumped me on the bed and I couldn’t undo my tapes for the respirator which was the gas or the gas cape.

How old were you at this time:

18

So had you been working before:

Yes I worked as a companion to a Colonel’s daughter.

So telegraphy was all new to you, you had to train:

Later I went to Southern Command I went to Durham for a month, training at teachers training college and we had to march behind the Durham Light Infantry over cobbles at the same pace as the light infantry — I think it was 140 to the minute and we paraded in front of the mayor. I went to southern command and we were sent to Wilton House where Southern Command was and then a new exchange was built underground, I also went to Balford Military Camp and was told where a saw was to saw through the cables if the Germans came. We had no signals officer so we were attached to local service people, the cooks and clerks and we did not come under military law until 1941 so anyone who misbehaved was given any punishment they thought fit. One girl came back to camp and had left her respirator and tin hat behind somewhere, so she had to parade round the camp round the barrack square every night at a certain hour, wearing her tin hat and gas cape and respirator, another girl I heard was put in a cold bath but I can’t verify that she wasn’t in my squad. If a girl went absent without leave from the squad we were attached to — the cooks, the clerks and the orderlies, redcaps would go out to find her and when she came back if I had been on duty at that time I had to give evidence to say she did not report back, I was sent to Pidgeton Marshes near Oxford — what was the name — I’ll have to put in the name of that place — and they had a war department engine to take people from Oxford to Amhirsh Farm and then from Amhirsh Farm to the camp, the camp was built on a marsh and the first time I was orderly NCO I stepped off the duckboard into the mud later found myself in the middle of the hedge there were no lights, and by mistake in the morning I rang my hand bell in the officers quarters, the revellie for the girls it was an ordnance depot, at 5.30 breakfast at 6.00 there were a couple of hundred huts and no map, my hut was called Rostoff all the huts had different names. We were supposed to have entertainment but very often it didn’t turn up, sometimes it was a film unit, if there was a dance the soldiers would come in with their muddy boots dancing on concrete
and it wasn’t very pleasant, occasionally as I was a Corporal I would be invited to the Sgts. mess and that was far more pleasant, we could go into Oxford and go to the playhouse and one day I went to the theatre and King Haycon from Norway came and they had a concert in aid of the Norwegion relief fund.

What sort of music did you listen to at the dances.

Classical music. I was eventually sent to a holding unit it begins in Sussex and we were given a draft number my army number was W5179 and my draft number was RQFGW, we were sent to London and from London I was baggage party on a train which went to Scotland to Gourock, from the train I was officers baggage party and had to look after their kit we each had two kit bags, from the train we went on board a ship called Orsidia, it was supposed to hold 1,400 people but it held 5,400 even had troops on board right down to E deck and one American had got on by mistake there were some Yugoslav troops and from the Firth of Forth we sailed out one Sunday after they had started the engines up every day for a week, we suddenly sailed in convoy 25 ships with 4 frigates, the frigates we had to zig zag — two toots to port and one toot to starboard, we were not allowed to throw anything overboard we were kept below decks until we reached the straights of Gibraltar and the four frigates sailed off and left us at Tangier. But on route the ship I was on broke down and we were left behind and we had to proceed alone, when we got to the straights of Gibraltar they told the troops who were sunbathing on the promenade deck to come down and they took no notice, because they were going to let off all the ships guns, they let off the multiple pompoms and then the troops all came down very quickly. While we were sailing we had to do drill on the boat deck we had to jump up and down on hard deckboards and the captain would do his rounds while everyone was above decks, they would take off the hatches then and it didn’t smell very nice, we had to keep enough food on board for the people who were going to go back to the United Kingdom. Our final destination was Naples, we encountered a storm on route and a lot of people were seasick, I was in a very small cabin which had three double bunks in it and you couldn’t move about really. We were given mosquito nets on route but before we left we were issued with thick pullovers like the men wore, thick very thick long trouser pants without an opening at the front — two pairs — high lace up boots, boots that laced up to the knee and we began to wonder if we were going to Labrador until we got issued with mosquito nets which we used when we got to Naples, in Naples we were billeted in a big house adjacent to the Bay of Naples we could see the Bay of Naples, and we had to climb six flights of marble stairs and we had a telephone exchange at a building which was across the soldiers park in the Turarna shipping company building, the exchange was a very ramshackle affair with plugs and sockets and an Italian engineer who was supposed to put things right if anything went out of order, he slept on a chair behind the exchange and would not repair anything unless he was told in Italian, he had resentment against the troops because the Americans had bombed Naples indiscriminately. Our food was very poor, we had ships biscuits that were stale for lunch with mashed tinned herrings on them we had no fresh milk, no butter, the bread was brown we had no white bread it was very poor, but they had good entertainment and the Naafi — the Navy Army and Air Force Institution had taken over the palace at Naples and I went to see a film there which was about Nelson and Lady Hamilton and I saw shown on the film the actual room that I was sitting in while I watched the film. When the weather got warmer we were issued with karki drill KD which was a skirt and a jacket but it didn’t fit so it had to be altered, and the main road in Naples and I took my uniform to be altered and someone tried to rob me on the way back to the billet they put their hand inside my shoulder bag which was over my shoulder but luckily they didn’t get past my knife fork and spoon and mug which I’d got wrapped up inside, somebody barged into me one side to distract my attention whilst the other person tried to rob me. From Naples I hitchhiked on the post van to Rome went to see the Vatican, all the paintings by Michael Angelo the ceiling that he painted, I could have had an audience with the Pope if I had wanted it, I went to see the Raphael Rooms I also toured Rome, went around the seven hills of Rome and the garden of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem where I was invited to look through a keyhole and they said how big is the Dome of the Vatican and through the keyhole at the Garden of the Knight of St. John of Jerusalem and it just framed the Vatican Dome and the Vatican had a special troop of men who would put up lights and decorations for any special occasion. We also had entertainment at the Garrison Theatre mostly run by the Americans and we had notable film stars and people taking part in plays, Alfred Lunt and his wife Lyn Fontaine and John Clements well known people came and Donald Walfit when I was at Balford Military Garrison in England Donald Walfit and his daughter came and performed shakespearian plays and we had a number of important orchestras, I had a permanent booking at the Fancarlo Opera House and one day someone offered me a lot of money for my seat but I didn’t take it I went as usual and Ginni came to sing he was rather fat but closing ones eyes and concentrating on the voice it made quite a difference, he took the part of Frederick the young lover in Labrahem the orchestra was composed by about 30 people conducted by a very old conductor who would talk to them in an undertone while they were playing and bringing trumpets and things with his little finger, and in the opera they actually had children performing in operas like Madam Butterfly they had a small child performing, I went back stage to see the dressing rooms they only had 4 main dressing rooms for the stars and the crowd had to go in another place altogether, some of the operas could not be performed as it took too long to have the scenery erected, the scenery some of it would take half a day to erect and they had the sun setting the moon rising snow flakes falling fire flies flying and the clouds moving but one day I saw them move from left to right and right to left and the wind blowing and the Italians would cry at the sad parts of the opera and when Ginni came he took eight curtains and they threw little sweets at him

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