大象传媒

When the war started I was living in Portman Road, Liverpool; working at Dean鈥檚 Drapery. I was directed into war work which meant working in factories. After two jobs which I did not care for, I decided that I did not like being in a factory, the alternative was either the forces or the Land Army. Having two brothers in the Army and another brother and sister in the Navy, my mother said no to my joining the WRENS (the Woman鈥檚 Royal Navy Corps). After waiting a couple of months, I decided on the WRACs (the Woman鈥檚 Royal Army Corps).
My eldest brother was on the railway and worked in a little country village between Standish and Wigan by the name of Bradley. Jim was a signal man. He operated the signal box mechanism which was a series of heavy levers. We must not forget all the people who worked on the railway, must we? Otherwise things could have come to a standstill.
After my basic training at Oswestery, I served at different camps along East and South coasts of England. These were all anti-aircraft bases on the prominent headlands facing the oncoming enemy aircraft, which came at us day and night for quite a time. Later, I was transferred to Southampton, to work on the telephone switchboards, as an operator, co-ordinating messages from different bases to command centres.
After my release to a supposedly free and peaceful country, I found that this was not so. Starting with Suez, Cyprus, Vietnam, the Falklands and Gulf wars, to name a few, there has never been a real peaceful time

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