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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Dorothy Jobling and has been added to the site wit her permission…

I was in the Girls Training Corp before I Joined the WRENS in 1943 at the age of seventeen and a half. During my training I learnt all about the Navy, how to speak, the correct naval terms to use and strangely, amongst other thing, how to scrub steps. Originally I had wanted to be a nurse, but had ended up going in to the Navy.

Following this I stayed for a short while at Inskip and Wharles Camp near Kirkham. Then we went to Parrox Hall where we took over the servants wing. It was a private residence; the owners had the choice, either evacuees or the Navy, so they chose us. It was about a mile away from Fleetwood, so that was the place we went to for our entertainment.
We had lots of fun and I made a lot of friends.

We worked three watches, on the night watch flares were sent up with parachutes attached to them. Parachutes were made of silk and as clothes were in short supply, silk was desirable; unfortunately the locals used to get to the fallen parachutes before we did and no doubt utilized them.

We sat on the sea wall with a site screen and equipment that looked something like a giant protractor, marking angles. The readings would then be sent back to the plotting office. The planes were training, checking for accuracy. During the time I was there we had only one fatality when a jet went in to the sea.

As I said we went into Fleetwood for our evenings out and it was there that I met a local farmer in the Marine Hall. I married him just before I was twenty and came out of the WRENS. I hired a film stars dress for the day, it was full length ivory satin and with it I wore a long veil. My two bridesmaids wore blue and one of them dyed a christening veil to match and made headdresses and as the wedding was in the winter months they carried red and silver muffs.

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