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The following letter appeared in the Ack Ack Reunion Newsletter 2002:

I have just been re-reading the Reunion 2001 issue newsletter and thought that I would put pen to paper. Like many other members I am getting on in years (80) but my memories of my life in the ATS during the Second World War are very clear. Now a widow, after being married to a wonderful husband for 53 years (1945 - 1998) I have plenty of time to sit and remember.

In 1941 at the age of 20 I was living and working in Harrogate and on an autumn afternoon I walked into a recruiting office to hopefully join the WAAF but when I came out I had signed up for the ATS!! The following week I was invited to go to Leeds for a medical and by the next week I had passed and was sent instructions and travel warrant to report on November 14 1941 to Glen Parva Barracks, Leicester. After 4 weeks basic training, more medicals and vaccinations etc and being kitted out, I had what were known as aptitude tests, consequently I had been picked to go to Devizes, Wiltshire to join 497 (M)HAA Battery RA. This was to be ‘The New Beginning’. At the RA Barracks, Devizes I was to be a Gunner along with a whole lot of girls like myself and what seemed to be an awful lot of men! Training was very hard and strict, but we were all working hard for our king and country.

January 1942 saw us travelling as an Ack Ack Battery complete, up to Burrowhead on the west coast of Scotland for our first practice camp where we learned how to work on the instruments with the 3.7 guns. I was training on the Height Pinder. The wintry weather wasn’t very enjoyable but by March 1942 we were to be operational! So we were all granted 7 days privilege leave which was great to be able to go home. My parents were very proud of me.

I reported to my first gun site which was at Spondon, Derby. There isn’t the space to tell all about the numerous gun sites and practice camps we were moved to, but here is a brief resume. During 1942 and 1943 Spondon, Smalley, Heanor, Littleover, Borrawash and all round Derby then Aspley, Nottingham. Then Little Weighton East Yorkshire and over the river Humber to Stallingborough, East Halton and Goxhill from 1943 — 1945.

Also during this time we went to practice camps at Ty Croes, Anglesey, Whitby, Spurn Point, Gorleston and Weybourne, North Norfolk. It was a long move when we travelled with all of the battery which meant cooks orderlies telephonists, drivers etc. As well as manning the instruments we had to be trained for marching which took place on the country lanes nearby, also there was Physical Training and Fatigues. We had local leave which meant a pass to go out of camp and privilege leave about once in 3 months. In 1944 all leave was stopped for quite a while. I worked hard and got a promotion to L/Cpl in 1942 then to Cpl in 1943 — acting Sgt. By now Radar was being used and I became Number 1 in the Plotting Room on the Command Post. I met my future husband in September 1944 and we were married in March 1945. I had had my medical to go overseas but this was not to be. I was de-mobbed in July 1945 as a married woman.

I have practically written more than this in a kind of book so that in the future my grandchildren will read all about their Granny’s life as a soldier during World War 2. I have attended every Ack Ack reunion at York and really enjoyed them but how I wish that just once I could meet one of ‘my girls’ from B Section 497 (M)HAA Bty. Where are they all? I did meet at the 2000 reunion Nancy Pfeifer from America who had been in my Battery although I didn’t remember her. I am enclosing a list of some of the girls I remember, I know that it is a long time ago but surely I am not the only one from 497. I was Betty Tyson before getting married in 1945. Now Wilshaw. We had 2 Sgt Davis’s (one was Betty); Cpl. Babs Holland (a Londoner); Private Elsie Bell (Morpeth); Sisters Emmy and Betty Colley (Redcar); Kay who married Taffy; Joan Ganley; Dinah Creasey; Ella Gall; Lucy Lockett; Lucy Hull; Jean McMillan; Muriel Greenslades (Wheeler); Betty Dawker; Peggy Jones (Blaenau Festiniog); Joan Parker; Freda Flynn (Huddersfield); Edie Maulkenson (Hull); Sisters Ivy and Phyllis Wyles; Hilda Smallman (Market Harborough); Frances Shipman; Ethel Coleman (Fakenham); Ethel Northen (Goxhill); Doreen Pinkney (South Shields) she was a bridesmaid at my wedding, I kept in touch with her and she died a few years ago; Kay Gulliver (married Frank Groves); Junior Commander Chevanaux-Trench and Subaltern Charrington were our ATC Officers. A few years ago I sent a Battery group photograph to the Lioness but they said that it wasn’t clear enough to reproduce. Maybe with modern computers they could now. I hope that I am able to attend the 2002 Ack Ack Reunion at York — God willing.

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