大象传媒

I joined the ATS in 1942, it was funny to think of working for the army but Im pleased I can look back on it now and know that I did my part. At the time I wasn't sure what I really wanted to get out of it but Im glad I worked hard, because I think I came out all the better for it. When I joined I was put into work as a traffic clerk. I dealt mostly with insurance claims which were linked to the army and RAF, its surprising how many claimants there were, but there were plenty. A lot of them seemed to be because tanks drivers kept hitting dry stone walls when they were learning to drive their tanks, I probably saw a lot of these because I was stationed in the north and that was where a lot of tank drivers were trained, at least it seemed that way to me. Although there were always claims which we laughed about, at the time there wasn't always a lot to laugh about but everyone always tried. I remeber that there was one man who kept claiming for his fuel pumps which tanks drivers kept knocking over. It happened quite a few times and he eventually gave up using his pumps at the front and swithced to using just the one pump at the back of his property. Think that made everyone a lot happier because we stopped seeing claims from him, probably because it became a lot harder for tank drivers to knock over his pumps. The worst people for claims were Americans, they always tried to do their best to cope with the paperwork but they didn't understand our different legal issues so we kept having to make them fill things out again it was a bit chaotic at times but we always got it done, that was how things were in those days, no matter what everything was we always finished it. Whilst I was statinoed in the north I stayed at Fulford just outside of York, it was a brilliant place to stay as we were just outsde of York and could go in when ever we wanted, although it was bad during the raids. When there was the Baedecker raids we saw a lot of destruction and me and quite a few of my friends made sure we volunteered for fire watch whenever possible. One of the good things about being in the ATS was that I never had to go through the same problems of rationing, not the same way most people did. Although there was one occassion when I returned home to work my fathers farm when he smashed his kneecap in a car accident. It was called agricultural leave and was actually really good because I got to stay at home and got paid for it as well. Rationing wasn't easy when I had to manage the farm but I found ways round it by selling duck eggs, these weren't rationed which was good because it made life a bit easier for my family. Even so with so many poeple away fighting we had to take on help from POW camps, it was strange but even though they were foreign many of them became good friends with me and my family. One called Otto was espescially good friends with my father, they used to joke about having been wounded in the same place, my father had smashed his kneecap in a car accident and Otto had been hit by shrapnel in his kneecap. Even so we only got along because he really made an effort, when he wasn't working he often used to carve little wooden toys which went down really well with the local children. However six weeks came and went very quickly and I soon found myself working back in the ATS. This wasn't too bad because I was doing well in my job, in fact I was on NCO training in London when VE day was announced, it was truly amazing as we went through such great parties and celebrations. On one night I was passing near buckingham palace and all of a sudden I was asked to join a Conga line, it went on for ages and before I knew it we had kicked our way to the front of the mass of people outside of Buckingham palace and I got to see the King and Queen, the thing I will remember the most about that day was seeing the queen in her ATS unifrom, it made me feel really proud to have been a part of that.

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