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I was attending secretarial college in 1939 in Aberdeen, and was at an interview when we heard a siren. We didn't know what it was - someone thought it might have been the fire brigade. We looked out and saw it was a lorry with a man in uniform with a loudspeaker saying "join up and see the world". A policeman told us it was a siren to say the war had started and we were all told to go home. When I got home, my brother came in and he had just joined up in the Air Force. He said if I didn't join up I would be put in munitions. And my dad said "Billy, take her down now and get her to join something because I don't want her in munitions. The girls there would be drinking and smoking and swearing, and I don't want her to be with girls like that". So my brother took me down and the man said "what do you want?" I said "I want to be like my brother and join the airforce". He said "but you're a woman". But I insisted and so he put me in stores accounts because I was a bookkeeper and typist.
I was sent to Wales to Penarth with my friend Pat Smith. I was a Scot and she was English. While I was away, about a year later, my mother took cancer and Dad gave up his work to look after my mother. I got a message from my officer to tell me there was a phonecall from my father and would I come and speak to him. He told me that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer and he was looking after her, but he wanted to know if I could get home. My commanding officer saw I was in tears, and she said "leave it with me and I'll see if I can get you posted closer to home in Aberdeen". Very shortly later, she called me to her office, and said I was posted to Montrose and I could go home from there on my day off once a week to visit my mother. It wasn't very long after that she died. It happened on my day off at home one day. It was a very bad and miserable day and I left home to get shoes. But on my way home from the shoe shop, I noticed that the blinds were down in the house and the sun wasn't shining. I couldn't understand why. Went I went into the house I asked my father why, and he said "Margaret, Mum has gone". I said "where has she gone?". "She has gone to be with the Lord" he said.
I remained in Montrose until the end of the war as a LACW (leading Aircraft Woman), number LACW 2116448. Near the end of the war I was going to be promoted to a Corporal, but I had left the airforce by then - it was a bit late for a promotion!
I was as happy as the day was long during my time in the airforce.

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