大象传媒

I was 13 years old in 1939, a pupil of Ilford County High School for Girls and living at 26 ARDWELL AVENUE, ILFORD, ESSEX with my parents George Fenn (a nurse at Whipps Cross Hospital)and Gwen (Mother) and my two brothers Leslie aged 16 and Michael aged 6. We all went to different schools and had been rehearsing for evacuation for several weeks. On the 1st September we got the go-ahead and quite suddenly our family was fractured. Leslie went to Kettering, Michael to Hitchen and I went to Ipswich. It was to be many years before we were all together again.
Evacuation was quite traumatic for me at first, but what must it have been like for my baby brother? Only many many years afterwards did I learn that Leslie came home the first Christmas and never went back, preferring to get involved in War work and Michael was sent back because he was so unhappy. I was the only one who stayed evacuated and I wasn't to return home until I was 16. We were moved around Ipswich several times until we were deemed to be close to the school which we shared - one week morning school and one week afternoon school. I was very happy in my last billet with a Mr and Mrs Rumsey and their young family. They did their very best to ensure I was as happy as possible and made my friends welcome as well.
It therefore came as a great shock to be told we were to be moved right away from Ipswich (too close to the Germans!)but we weren't told where we were going. Back we went to London, to Paddington Station, and so began a long, cold journey which seemed to last for ever. Every so often the train would stop, perhaps to allow a troop train to go by, perhaps to take on water or fuel. Whatever, we got more and more weary until at last we arrived. We found ourselves in a village hall in a small place called BLAEN-GARW in South Wales. We were plied with cups of tea and buns while our teachers sorted out our billets. The whole of the village showed the greatest kindness to us over the next 2 weeks and we were fascinated by everything and everyone. The road petered out into the moutain, we were really in the "back of beyond" and sheep were everywhere - they would roam through the front door and out the back door with no-one raising an eyebrow, we thought it hilarious. Every house had a kettle permanently hot on the fire and we were given strong tea with spoonsful of condensed milk at the drop of a hat, these kind people were determined to make us welcome. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that a monumental mistake had been made. There was no senior school of any sort that we could go to, in fact we should have gone to Porthcawl and the infant school which had ended up there should have come to Blaen Garw. As by now the infants were settling in their new homes it was thought kinder to leave them there and look for somewhere else for us!
It was decided we would go to Aberdare and share with the Girls' High School there, so off we went again. I ended up in a very large flat in a big house called Mardy House in large grounds. There I stayed, with Lyn and Gwen Morris, until 1942. Our teachers must have wondered what to do with us when we weren't at school, but somehow there was always something of interest. Of great excitement to some of us was when we were taken down a coal mine. In small groups we descended in the cage to the first level. I can still see it in my mind's eye and smell the coal dust. There we were able to talk on the telephone to the foreman at the pit-face. I don't know what he thought of all these Essex girls asking him questions but we found to our embarassment that we couldn't understand him at all, his Welsh accent was beyond us. We all tried to say the correct thing and I sincerely hope he understood. Ever since that experience I have had the profoundest admiration for the miners. Just that short while underground gave me feelings of claustrophobia and panic. When we were told that the men went down much deeper, sometimes crawling on their bellies to get to the seam of coal, we all felt very humbled.
Schooling went on apace, but it became evident that we would not be able to study all our subjects for our School Certificate. We were given our core subjects which had to be taken and were allowed to drop three, giving us the minimum Six which had to be passed at one sitting (no retakes in those days). I willingly dropped German, and also History and Latin. I wish now I had been able to keep the two latter subjects but there was physically not the time to fit them all in. The war did not affect us where we were, it all seemed so far away, but we knew Ilford was receiving its fair share of bombs, also Bristol where my grandparents lived. Shortly before our exams, my friends and I decided we were going to return to Ilford and finish our schooling there. So many girls had gone home that they had had to open up the school again.
1942 saw me back home, with my new baby brother Roger (who was born in July) taking my exam which fortunately I passed. There was no chance I could go into the 6th form as I was expected to get a job and start earning.
As I loved books I became a Junior Library Assistant but when it became clear that I would have to take exams to make any progress, I decided to use my shorhand and typing skills and so obtained a job as junior clerk/typist in a firm in London called Kidditogs, making outdoor clothing for children. Things were hotting up in the area with high explosive bombs and incendiary bombs being dropped both in Ilford and near where I worked. At this time I also belonged to a Concert Party and we would travel, in an old ambulance to various localities all over London to entertain the troops. If we were visiting our Ack-Ack station, we knew we would be in for a noisy night often singing and dancing to the background noise of the guns blazing away at the enemy planes overhead. My Boss at Kidditogs, a Mr Bollom, had been invalided out of the Army with a leg injury and he was very frustrated as he wanted to be back fighting again. All the men at the factory and in the office would take turns at firewatch duty. After work they would stay there, on the lookout in particular for any incendiary bombs landing on or in the factory. I greatly admired them because they would then come back to work the next day as if they had had a full nights sleep. No-one complained, they just got on with it.
By this time, Leslie had joined the RAMC and was posted abroad and I thought I'd do my bit. I tried to enlist at 17 and 17-and-a-half years but was told to come back when I was older. Eventually I was able to sign up in 1944 and was sent to Guildford for my initial training with the ATS. Having been evacuated I did not mind leaving home, but many of my companions were very homesick and there were tears on the pillow for some time until they settled down. I found Army life exciting, I loved the lectures, which were all entertaining and I particularly liked Drill; perhaps because I was a dancer I enjoyed the precision of the movements. What I didn't like were the inocculations. We all lined up with our shirts off, arms on hips, and it would be 'bang, bang, bang' until the needle had to be changed! Some of the girs fainted clean away, some had bad reactions and some only minor discomfort. At least we had a day off to recover! We were warned that we would have a route march towards the end of our training and it would be awful! So when the day dawned we were all very fearful. However it turned out to be much better than expected and we were all relieved and proud to have succeeded. Our passing out parade went well, we were in 3rd Platoon Coy No 7 Training Centre Guildford, and we were given leave before being posted. I elected to visit my grandmother in Bristol and she came to Temple Meads station to see me off. I was standing in the entrance to the carriage saying goodbye when the guard came along slamming the doors shut. Unfortunately, my right thumb was caught in the door. I screamed, the door was re-opened, and I nursed a rapidly swelling, very painful digit on the journey to Guildford. Reporting to sick bay when I got there, I was sent to Aldershot where I was X-rayed, told I had a hair-line fracture and my hand was put in plaster. I was then told I would be unable to go with my friends to Camberley Driving School and would have to remain in Guildford in a holding unit for 6 weeks. In a holding unit, you get all the dead end jobs such as kitchen cleaning duties, etc but because I couldn't use my hand I was put in the Quartermasters Store where all the uniforms etc were kept. At least I was nice and warm (it was a very cold winter)but I was frustrated at the delay.
Eventually, my thumb healed and I went to Camberley in Surrey for my driving instruction. This seemed to be a very big camp but I found myself, with several other girls, taken to a private house outside the camp, which was to be our billet. This was fine, but there was no heating or hot water and we were told we mustn't attempt to light a fire. To make matters worse, we had to get to and from camp by crossing a golf course. Naturally, no lights anywhere, only the dimmest of torches as we stumbled our way across, aiming for the lights of the Camp. I cannot imagine what damage we must have done to the greens - we fell into enough bunkers anyway!
Once again we were back to lectures of all kinds. I don't think any of us knew how to drive and I had hardly even sat in a car, let alone understood how it worked. We had all walked, bicycled or used Public Transport pre war, so this was a very unknown world we were entering.
With the aid of an engine on a stand, a mock up of a car, illustrations etc, we gradually found out how things worked, until we were ready for our first drive. I can't remember, but I imagine our first tentative attempts would have been in the camp before we were sent out onto the road. We were trained on all sorts of vehicles from a tiny one we called a bug, up through Humber staff cars, to ambulances and trucks. To this day I can remember double-declutching and I can also remember having to start a vehicle using a starting handle. This was inserted at the front and it was an art to turn at just the right resistance before giving a big turn - if you didn't get it right then at best you had to try again and at worst you could break your wrist if it backfired! We were allocated a vehicle and would have an NCO sitting in the front and if appropriate there were two more girls sitting behind. This was all very nerve wracking as each day we would be assessed on everything - tests after lectures, understanding of the engine on the stand and latent driving ability. If you were thought to be not up to scratch, the next day when reading Standing Orders you would find your name and next to it 'RTU' (Return To Unit). Many a girl has been in floods of tears as there was no appeal. I realise now that the Army couldn't afford to keep on anyone who wouldn't make the grade, but at the time it seemed almost inhuman.
I had several 'close calls' but thankfully stayed the course. Once I was in a car in procession waiting to exit the drive when the door opened and the lance corporal was told to get out by an officer. She then told me to get in the driving seat while she sat in the passenger seat and told me to drive off. I had never been in this type of vehicle before and the controls were unfamiliar to me. The brake was in a shaft at an angle to the floor and I was struggling to release it and quietly panicking. I could see RTU beside my name in my mind's eye! "Push it down!" said the officer irritably. I'm afraid I took that literally and tried to do just that with no success. After what seemed like hours but could only have been a very few seconds, I cottoned on to the fact that it was not 'down' but 'forward' and I was able to get started and drive off. Fortunately I survived but I felt annoyed at the officer - down is down and forward is something entirely different! On another occasion, we were in a small copse, practising reversing, in a Jeep. I thought I was doing quite well until I was told to stop and turn right round and look behind me. To my horror I found I was about a foot from a tree. Again fate smiled on me and all was well. As we progressed, we were sent out on our own, two to a vehicle. One night we had to negotiate map references in order to rendezvous at an unspecified point at a certain time. With my friend Gillian Sweeting we went off in a truck, in total blackout, no headlamps only 'slits' of light coming from them. We had to go across Windsor Great Park and we managed this by Gillian leaning out of the passenger side guiding us as best she could, while I leant out of my side making sure I didn't stray off the single track road. Thankfully, we got to our rendezvous in time, which turned out to be a cafe where we all had tea and buns. On another occasion, in snowy, icy conditions, we were out in one of the small 'bugs'. Suddenly we skidded off the road into a ditch at the side. We weren't hurt and there didn't appear to be any damage to the bug, but how to get it back on the road? Just then a lorry full of soldiers drew up, and after many cracks about 'women drivers' several of them got in the ditch and literally heaved it out!
Came the time when we sat our final written exams and our driving test and I believe we all passed. Gillian and I were posted to London, to Chelsea to 920 WO Transport Company, RASC. Groups of us were billeted in large houses behind the Kings Road (worth a fortune these days)and our vehicles, Standard 8 Vans, were garaged at Chelsea barracks. Each morning we would go to one of the houses for breakfast, then collect our vans and drive to Northumberland House in Northumberland Avenue and report for duty. Each of us would have a civilan postman assigned to our van and he dictated where we had to go. For example, our first stop might be Downing Street, where sacks of mail would be taken in and more sacks brought out. These would then be taken , say, to the Admiralty and the process repeated. Sometimes I spent all day driving in and out of Whitehall, sometimes I had to go across London. Each day was different, we never knew where we would go. Once I went a long way out of London and when I returned I was told it was one of the places where Winston Churchill was having a meeting, but I never met the great man, more's the pity. Sometimes there would be Air Raids in the Capital during the day or night. We got quite blase about it, almost fatalistic. What would be, would be, seemed to be our feeling.
Being stationed in London gave us access to many of the Service Clubs, the Nuffield Centre, the Rainbow Rooms and others whose names I've forgotten. There were many pubs where we might go, in groups. We would buy a half pint of 'Mild and Bit' and make it last the whole evening, it was the company we wanted, not the drink. The blackout was quite rigorous, no light was to show at all, and we became quite clever at feeling our way around. I found the food very good, I was skinny and always hungry, so was grateful for whatever I could get! At one time, one of the houses further up the street was occupied by some Yanks. They were like some exotic creatures, their uniforms were beautifully cut and made of fine material while our poor soldiers were in thick khaki, not always well fitting!

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