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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by a volunteer from Lincoln CSV Action Desk on behalf of Irene Paterson and has been added with her permission. Mrs Paterson fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My father was in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and a Warrant Officer in WW2. I was at this RAF camp and met these two airmen at the NAAFI dance and asked them why they were unhappy. They said they had been given ‘jankers’ by Warrant Officer Corke for not cleaning their shoes and buttons properly. I dared not tell them that he was my father; if they only knew!

My father was such a fuss pot who was always administering jobs and never dirtied his hands. So when I joined the WAAFs in Wigan, Lancashire. I didn’t want to be in an office job, I’m not an office person. When I came home and told him I had joined the WAAFs he asked if I was in an office job. I told him that I wasn’t and that I was a barrage balloon operator. He nearly went mad! He said ‘You can’t join them, they have guns!’ I said ‘Well it’s too late I have and that’s that!’

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