大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Eileen Linder on behalf of Gill McDermott, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

I joined the Royal Navy with the hope of becoming a meteorologist because I had had a year at university after leaving school and it took me a year to find out that I was not natural student material. I had always wanted to join the WRNS, I think I liked the hats more than anything. My great grandfather was a sailor and my grand father was a sailor, and his son, my uncle, was a sailor. My father at this time was far away in West Africa, and my mother was working for the Women鈥檚 Volunteer Service, so everybody was doing something useful. What was I doing,- arguing with other students and having silly little love affairs and things. I just thought that there was a big war going on outside there. Dunkirk had proved that we were not ready to fight the Germans and we had to get going with it, and so I went and joined the Wrens.
I can鈥檛 remember the day I enlisted but it would be sometime in 1941.
I remember how it came about, it was quite funny actually. My mother and I were sitting having a cup of coffee in a caf茅 in Bridlington where we lived in East Yorkshire. And there were 2 Wren officers at the other end of the caf茅 having coffee and I said to mummy I am going over to see how those girls can help me to get in. So I went over and I said I want to join the Wrens and they looked me up and down and said, 鈥渘ow what have you got to offer the Wrens鈥�. I said well I have a year doing geography, geology, and meteorology and I thought perhaps those might be useful to the Royal Navy. And they said, yes, well it will, but you will have quite a long time to get involved in it before that. And we would tell you to go to the nearest office where they will take your details and in due course you will get a brown envelope with a little window calling you up. It took 6 months to get that envelope and I became more and more anxious. I thought I will join the ATS or the WRAF 鈥� but they didn鈥檛 have as nice hats.
When I did eventually receive the letter I was excited beyond all imagination. I had instructions as to how to get from Bridlington to London. How to get a taxi to the centre where I would be trained in the very basics. I remember hearing my grandmother and her bridge four talking about things which I didn鈥檛 understand. About white slavery, and how things like that happen to people in talking to strange men in taxis. Fortunately I didn鈥檛 see anything of it, but I got there and I was interviewed by one of the interviewing officers and she said now I have got you down for a Radio Mechanic Offenheim (that was my maiden name). I said but ma鈥檃m I don鈥檛 know anything about radio. Oh well she said you will soon learn about it when you get into the Royal Navy. And she said we need you very badly for the Fleet Air Arm. So I went away feeling very like a bird that had lost its ability to fly. All the other girls seemed to have got jobs that they wanted. They were a boat crew and were keen on boating at the weekends, or they were in offices and they had been in offices all their lives. And only me I wanted to do meteorology because I knew that would get me into the Fleet Air Arm, and more interesting ways of doing things

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