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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Christine Wadsworth of Wakefield Libraries and Information Services on behalf of Margaret, Eve and Beatrice. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions and have given their permission for their stories to be added.

Margaret's Story:

I was 15 when I started work at Town Tailors in Castleford. My brother Able Seaman Harry Spencer died on HMS Exeter on December 13th, he had been involved in the Battle of the River Plate. Two light cruisers, Ajax and Achilles chased the Admiral Graf Spee through the South Atlantic into Montevideo Harbour, South America. Rather than surrender the Graf Spee scuttled herself. Harry was 21 when he died. I had gone to work and someone came to fetch me home to Normanton when my mother Amy found out about her son. She got to know about it by reading it in the newspaper. The telegram was pushed through the letterbox afterwards. The ship’s Chaplain wrote to my mum saying that Harry had been buried at sea and how sorry he was. I still have the letter and a newspaper cutting of mum meeting the Queen at a presentation in London after the War in my possession.

I was told that I would have to go into the Services, but my mum said that she had already had a son in the Navy and so I had to go on War Work instead. Mum’s brother, Harry Smith, was in the Army and had been captured by the Japanese. On his release after the War he was in a bad way suffering from Beri Beri and Hook Worm.

I went to work at Thorpe Arch on munitions making 20mm bullets or working in the place where bombs were made. I worked days, afternoon and nights, going by train from Normanton with a lot of other girls and women. If we wanted to go to the pictures, we went into Castleford early morning, watched the picture and then went by train from Castleford to Thorpe Arch in the afternoon.

Beatrice's Story:

I worked on Lewis’s perfume counter in Leeds, travelling in everyday. I was 20 and realised that I would be called up. A lady I worked with said that she would like to go, but not in the Services, so I said what about the Land Army. She said that she would love to so we agreed to ask if we could go together. We put our names down in Leeds, but she got her papers before me so I said that I’d bet that we wouldn’t be together. A couple of days later I got mine and we were both assigned to a new hostel for twenty six Yorkshire girls in Atherstone, Warwickshire. Our uniform was sent to us beforehand — breeches, greatcoat and hat — and a travel voucher for the train. We met two other girls on the train and we all travelled together. We were the last to arrive, but our bunks had been saved for us. We changed bunks in the big, long dormitories for a week at a time so that one week we slept on the top bunk and the next on the bottom one.

We worked on different War Agricultural Farms. Farmers would send for one, two, three, or sometimes more girls at Harvest time. We were given a bike each — I couldn’t ride mine at first! If we worked up to five miles away from base we used the bikes, if more, a big lorry was sent for us. We did the work usually done by men. Some girls learned to drive tractors and milk cows as well as helping with the hay making and harvest, it was hard work but I think that most girls enjoyed it and we got a nice tan!

I got married in 1943, in St Mary Magdalene Church, Altofts. I didn’t have any coupons so I borrowed a wedding gown from my husband-to-be’s cousin. We had learned to make do and mend, making skirts from bell bottom trousers.

When a baby came along my Land Army days were over, but I still keep in touch with three of the girls — Edna, Margo and Elsie.

Eve's Story

I worked in Holdsworth’s Mill in Wakefield, walking to the station to catch the 6am train to Kirkgate Station, then running up Ings Road for 7am to start work at 7.30am, finishing at 5pm. My working week was five and a half days for which I earned 7/6 (37½p), out of which I had to pay my train fare.

I knew that at 19, I would have to look for war work and didn’t want to go to Barnbow and get blown up. I longed to be a nurse but couldn’t because of theatre work as I couldn’t stand blood. I went to work as a semi-skilled fitter working on Lancaster Bombers at the AVRO works at Yeadon, next to the flight shed or aerodrome. Captain Wirral was in charge.

I went to Leeds on the train, caught the bus to Yeadon and was brought to my lodgings in a car — I’d never been in one before — where I dumped my bags and left them there. It was sparsely furnished, and I realised that the men lodgers who worked nights slept in the same beds as we girls on the alternate shift did. Luckily I remembered that my brother-in-law’s auntie lived in Yeadon, at East View, a three storey house, and after asking where it was I eventually found it and she took me in. Mrs Taylor was lovely, but it wasn’t like having my own mum there. I went home every week — I had a lovely home — but had to start going home just once a month as I was so upset going back to Yeadon everytime.

The Duke of Kent came to look at the aircraft, but his plane crashed not long after his visit and he was killed.

I had been at AVRO three years when my father had an accident, nearly losing his arm. With him being in Clayton Hospital very little money was coming in, so I applied for an exemption and got it. I had to get a medical certificate before I could leave AVRO and go on to another war job and that’s how I went to work at Stanley Royd Hospital. At first I was in the laundry, but then after a number of years I worked as a nurse — I loved every minute of it!

You know when we were young we only had one dress for school and one for Sundays. In the War we couldn’t get stockings so we used gravy browning to colour our legs and drew a line down the backs of our legs for a seam. We changed sweet coupons for margarine for the men’s snap. It was a better atmosphere than now — everyone loved and helped each other

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