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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ London on behalf of Mrs Betty Johnson and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Johnson fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

On 16th June 1944 I was 16 years old, and a trainee book-keeping machinist at a large City branch of the old National Provincial Bank. I worked in a large open-plan room with about 30 girls and young women. All of them had husbands or sweethearts fighting, but as I was by far the youngest, I was fortunate enough to be heart and fancy-free. All the men had gone to the war, of course, except for a few boys, trainees like myself, and some men over 45 or so.

At about 9.30, a young lad from the Stocks and Shares department suddenly burst in the door and shouted out: ‘It’s started! The 2nd Front has started! It’s D-Day! It’s just come through on the ticker-tape! We’re invading Europe now! We are landing on the beaches at this minute!!!’

All the machines stopped, and there was a second’s frozen silence. Then — bedlam started! All the women started hugging each other for comfort, and were crying. Two were down on the floor having hysterics. All were sobbing, some were wailing. Three or four just fell onto their knees and were praying.

My horrified boss tried to calm them, but they were far too upset. The invasion was happening at THIS minute, and their loved ones were in mortal danger.

He called me over: ‘Miss Jordan, I can see I’m not going to get any sense out of these. Cut up to the canteen and warn them that I’m sending this lot up for coffee, to give them time to pull themselves together.’

So I dash up to the canteen and announce breathlessly ‘All the book-keeping floor are coming up for coffee. The 2nd Front has started and they’re all too upset to work.’ The next moment cook and her four or five staff were all holding onto each other and sobbing. This time — I had been the bearer of the bad news. So, as the book-keeping staff straggled upstairs trying to contain their sobs, they were met by the canteen ladies crying their hearts out!

And I suppose that scene must have been repeated in all the factories and offices all over England as the news leaked out.

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