大象传媒

I was 16 when war broke out and got a job as a telephonist in Wigan. I was not released to join the Armed Forces but was drafted into the Fire Service where I worked on the switchboard. It involved nightwork for two nights a week and my mother was very concerned. She was upset about her 16 year old being in the middle of all those firemen! She needn't have worried - in those days you were in no danger of being ravaged - I was never embarrassed in any way.
There was a lot of bombing at Christmas 1940 - we worked on the top flooor and I remember peeping through the curtains and seeing the searchlights in the sky.

The Yanks from the base at Burtonwood came to the Empress Ballroom in Wigan. Every Saturday night there'd be dances and they always brought nylons, chocolates and had a smooth line in conversation. Our parents used to frown on them but my cousin became a GI bride and went to live in California.

My brother was in the RAF and was stationed in Blackpool and was billeted in a Boarding House. I needed to work for a week at the Blackpool Telephone Exchange and he got me a room in the same house. My mother told him he was to look after me and I remember him showing me how to wedge a chair underneath the door handle of my bedroom door to repel any intruders - That's how they treated young girls in those days!

Later he was posted out to India - to Karachi. He was on the maintenance side - not a pilot - but mother still went mad with worry.

I got married in 1945. My husband was a telegraphist in the Navy. He was in Coastal Forces and was on patrol in the English Channel and the North Sea. They got into trouble off the Norway coast and limped back to Berwick on Tweed. When he came home he had nothing - only the clothes he stood up in - he had lost all his possessions.

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