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This story was submitted to the People War’s site by Clare Nelthorpe of CSV Media on behalf of Irene Leigh (née Grant) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Joining the WAAF

We were all sent to Paddington Station, where we had our sandwiches and cakes. We were sent to Gloucester, where we were allocated huts, it was pouring with rain. Gradually they issued us with uniforms — one day a skirt, the next day shoes, one by one we got each piece. Eventually we got given a sheet of brown paper, string and a label for tying up our civvies. We were posted to Morecombe to do our square bashing, we had to march along the front every morning with the sergeant yelling her head off. We were put in billets, and from there sent to various stations, and then to be posted. Myself and Betty were sent back to Morecombe, our landlady was a real blighter, giving us biscuits and custard, only real treats when our sergeant came.

That’s were we learnt to drive, we didn’t know how to drive at all, we had to know all about the mechanics — even greasing the nipples underneath! I did time with fighter command and also bomber command, bomber command was better. It was more interesting, spitfires were not interesting, but Lancasters were, even now if I see one I have tears rolling down my cheeks. But it was sadder, sitting up in flight control waiting for your boys to come back, but it wasn’t until a day later that you might hear he’d landed somewhere else, or not come back. I never had a boyfriend, it wasn’t worth it, you’d never know if they’d come back. I met my husband in the forces, he was aircrew; he was younger so as a poor lad he didn’t get past his training.

Daily life

You only found out each morning what you were going to do. If you were on the spill bucket round, you were going round emptying the toilet buckets, with it sloshing away in the back of the vehicles, the smell was terrible!

As a driver I had short legs, so I had to put a brick behind me on my seat so that I could reach the pedals.

The cushy thing about being in the WAAF was that we never had a kit inspection. You couldn’t have a thing out of place. We got away with a lot being MT (motor transport) drivers.

When I look back I feel guilty about loading bombs on the aircraft but people say to me what about the bombs they dropped on us.

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