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I was born January 15th, 1910, and my name’s Hilda Philips.
I was at home during the war. I was married October 5th 1935, and I had a little boy in September 1936, so I didn’t do war work as such. I had my little boy, and my husband was working at Park Hall camp in Shropshire. He was hoping to join the RAF, and he had all the exams, you know, and then he had this peretinitus, and he was rolling about in pain, and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?’ and I hadn’t a phone or anything then. Early the next morning, I got the little boy from next door to go to the surgery with a note from me to Chirk. We lived in Chirk Green, and the surgery was in Chirk. And the doctor came straight away, and my husband was taken to hospital. I don’t think they thought he would pull through. But he did. He was alright afterwards. So then he worked at the Park Hall camp as a fitter, with the cars and the vans and the whatnot, all required for the army, so he did do war work. I think Park Hall was a training camp. They trained for different things and went from there.
In the beginning of the war, my two young brothers went to Park Hall to train as bakers and confectioners, and they both passed out there. But they weren’t there together, it was years before they met up with each other. One was 19 when he was called up, and the other was 18 and a half. They were abroad with the fighting, but I can’t remember where they went. My young brother finished up in India, and he then went with the wagons, driving, with the younger people, and when he came home, he did that too. I can’t remember where it was though, sorry.
I lost two cousins in the war though (not from the same family). One on D-day, Tom Sudlow. He was from Chirk. The other, George Vaughan, from Wrexham, was a rear gunner in the air force, and he was shot down. They never found either body.

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