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When I was a girl, I wanted to go into the WRENS. My fiancé told my Mother not to let me go there because he had seen what went on with the Navy men! So I went into the fire service. The job I was given was Secretary to the Deputy Chief Fire Officer. He was getting on and his name was Mr Metcalf.

When I went to see him he said, ‘I’ve never had a secretary before love. I don’t know what to do with you!’

So I said to him ‘I can type letters.’ And he said, ‘I don’t send letters.’
So I said ‘I can do filing.’ And he said, ‘I don’t have any filing.’

He really didn’t know what to do with me at all. After a little while he said, ‘Do you do knitting?’
I said, ‘yes’ so he said, ‘Well bring your knitting in then love.’

My mother also thought she would join the fire service. They put her in the stores which were very hectic. If I had her job and she had mine we both would have been OK!

I got married in 1941 and soon found that I was expecting. When I told Mr Metcalf he said, ‘Well love, we had better not tell the firemen because they will think it’s hilarious. I know, we will tell them you have a bad back.’

When the time came for me to give up work he told them my back had got worse. Imagine how surprised they were when I took my new baby in to show them!

They all said it must have been a VERY bad back!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jacci Phillips of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on Behalf of Lillian Batty and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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