大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Elsie Margaret Astley (n茅e Ware) and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Astley fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

When war broke out I was 17 and was a pupil teacher in nursery education, so I was evacuated with the children to Hastings. I was in church there when war was declared. I decided teaching was not for me so I came home to Tooting, London at Christmas 1939. I got a job with a publishing firm in the City of London. After the big bombing fire raid my firm's offices got bombed and burnt down. I lost my eyebrows because we had to go through an alleyway and the flames just leapt out. We were frightened but being young there was a sense of excitement. You got used to it. When the air raid warning went we just said, "Oh, another night of it" and we slept under the dining room table. Every night my father would get up at midnight to see if Big Ben was going, because he thought that if it was, all was allright. Every night he hit his head on the table and mother and I laughed. My elder brother was in the army; my younger brother had been evacuated, and my father was in the Home Guard.

I did not like going on the tube. I used to go on the Northern line, and if there was a very bad raid they used to close the exit gates at Waterloo because they were afraid the river would be hit and the tube flooded. We had to stay underground in the tunnel and sit tight.

I left home in 1941 and joined the WAAFs. The Medical Officer said, "Go out and come in again". Then, "Congratulations, you have grown half an inch", because at that time you had to be 5 ft 0 in. Half an inch was added to my height. I was called Gill because I was so small. At first I was called "half pint" and they said I was not big enough so I had to be Gill. I hated the 6 weeks we had for drill. That was in Manchester and we could not go home during that time. We were sorted out for what trade we wanted to do. I was offered being an instrument repairer because I had very thin fingers. It was interesting and I was trained at Melksham. I felt more at home. I went to Honeyborne Camp near Evesham. It was an air crew training unit for Bomber Command. I worked on Winnipegs " big fat-bellied things ", Blenheims. There were no English crew, mainly Canadians and some Poles. They usually came for 3 months training. You repaired the flying panel, the oxygen, anything in the gun turrets, and cameras. If there was a 'big' inspection, one person from every trade that had worked on it had to go on the test flight. That made sure that you kept your mind on your work! I did not really enjoy the test flights; the aircraft made heavy weather, and I was nervous.

I worked in a section with six men and one other woman. On a parade I always had to go at the end because I was the smallest. I worked in the hangars, and never once did the men swear in front of a WAAF if they knew she was there. I felt very fulfilled doing the instrument repair. It was a challenge and I felt I was doing something to help with the war. After Dunkirk particularly, people were very, very keen to make a contribution. When we were going on leave we used to fill all our haversacks with cherries and other fruit that we had scrumped to take home for our families.

It was great working in the hangars; mostly men on the trades. Once when the call went out "NAAFI up", I was rushing to the NAAFI and found that someone had attached a hook to my belt and was hauling me up to the top of the hangar by the chains they used to take off the propellers. We got a "Char and a Wad"(tea and rock cake) and they saved mine for me. So the next day the men said, "We have a present for you" which was a ladder of four steps so that I could reach the NAAFI counter because I was barely 5 ft tall.

We had a very good Camp Commander. We were at the foot of Chipping Camden hills and it was all farmland there. The Commander said that if any of the people on the camp would help to prepare the peas and beans, he would obtain them from the farms. There was an American Army camp about a mile away. We were horrified by the way the few black GIs were treated. They could not sit in the same part of the cinema as the white Americans and they did all the menial tasks. We used to see the American GIs at Evesham, at the cinema, walking into Evesham, and at dances. I learned to ride a bike there. We rode from our billets at the WAAF site to the airfield. The sentry always used to run into the hut when he saw me wobbling along. He looked terrified.

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