大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Swindon College on behalf of Thelma Leybourn and has been added to the site with her permission. Thelma fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I grew up in Belfast. My parents separated and I went to live with my grandparents and my mother鈥檚 sister. I was very much my grandfather鈥檚 favourite, a fact that my aunt didn鈥檛 like. One Friday night I had a very big row with my aunt over trivial matters. Next morning, I went down to Belfast to the Recruiting Office for the Women鈥檚 Army. This enabled me to leave my home.

I joined the ATS in about 1941. I worked around Belfast for a long time doing different jobs and living in some Nissan huts. Later I was posted to England, to an area just outside London in order to train as a driver. I was so excited. I wrote to my mother with the details of the camp, describing it in great detail. I also told her about the job I was doing and the driving. I wrote very regularly but received no letters from home.

Some months went by and one day I was called into the office to see the Commanding Officer. I was very frightened as I thought I had done something wrong. My mother had apparently written to the camp to tell them that I had not contacted her and that she did not know how to contact me. I was astounded. I explained how I had written every week and that I had posted the letters in the letterbox outside the camp. To my horror, I was told that that post box had not been used for years!! So all the letters I had written were probably still in the post box outside the camp.

I remember driving around Trafalgar Square one day with my instructor officer. I was very nervous. Some Yanks were walking along the pavement and suddenly, they stepped out in front of me. Fortunately I managed to stop this big truck I was driving 鈥� they almost went under the wheels. My instructor was very verbal 鈥� the language was the worst I had ever heard 鈥� and I had heard plenty of bad language before. Again I was living in Nissan huts. We were fed well too 鈥� really these huts were very comfortable. I did all sorts of jobs, office work and an awful lot of driving and carrying and fetching.

In 1943 I was sent to Egypt and again did office work as well as driving the 鈥渂ig 15 cwts鈥�.

One Saturday one of the lads asked me if I fancied a ride out to see the pyramids. We drove for miles and miles 鈥� the weather was very hot, and the journey not particularly comfortable in a wagon. When I arrived, I couldn鈥檛 believe my eyes. The view 鈥� the enormity of it. I cried and cried. So much sand and the sheer size of the pyramids. I had only seen pictures of the pyramids before and this view seemed so different. I was stationed in Cairo for 2 years.

I left the ATS at the end of the war.

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