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I’d been at work about 6 weeks when war started — I was 14 years old.
I was at a little shoe factory.
I remember the blackouts and fog — you even got lost in familiar areas.
When I was 16 I met a youth and we went to a dance at a community centre I had been with him about 4 weeks and he was called up into the army.
I wrote to him all the time. Then I was 18 and I joined the Wrens.
We went on to marry in 1944.
It was lovely.
I had a borrowed wedding dress of course. You couldn’t come home prior to the wedding.
My husband was unfit for sea and they were going to discharge him from the Navy.
As he was stationed in Portsmouth and I was nearby he asked if he could stay so he would be close to me and they said ‘yes’.
I was discharged in 1945 in August — I was having a baby.
For VE day I was in hospital with a suspected miscarriage — I could hear all the ship hooters but I was confined to bed. My husband was discharged in November 1945 — the day our son was born.
I used to be a cook and cooked in the mess for petty officers.
I loved it.
On the island there were 400 Wrens.
It was a terrible time but friendship was good.
My husband had a disability pension. Even though he died some years after the war as he was discharged and one of the reasons caused his death I was classed as a war widow.
I belong to quite a few groups due to comradeship — the Royal British Legion, the Royal Naval Association and I became the Chair of the Leicester Branch of the Association of Wrens.

This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War Website by Lisa Reeves of CSV Action Desk on behalf of Betty Withers and has been entered with her permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

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