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‘This Story was submitted to the People’s War site by Soniya Bhargava of the Chineham Learning Centre on behalf of Dorothy Parker and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions’

My first experience was in the land army and I was based at Wishbeck. I was strawberry picking. My mother in law wrote to the headquarters and got me released because she didn’t want to be alone. I joined NAFFI in 1940. NAFFI did all the food for the troops. I was in NAFFI for 10 months. I had some lovely times, had Christmas dinner with the troops. I meet lots of different types of people. I really enjoyed the work I carried out.

I joined the ATS in 1941 I was there for nearly four years. I was supplying parts to the troops components for guns we used to put little notes of encouragement like give them one for me boys to help them along. We used to get some replies too!

When we both had some leave we arranged to meet in Edinburgh station and we didn’t realise there were two so we wasted out first day of leave. A lady who owned a café let my husband use the phone to phone me.

My husband was also stationed in Scotland the same time as me so we used to meet up as often as we could, meeting at each other’s station.

I did a course of night work sitting on the tailboards handing guns to the troops in the lorry including bazooka guns they were very heavy.

One night I had just finished night work and was on my way to a café with a group of girls for our breakfast and on our way out we had just crossed to road and the café got bombed I was really shook up. I had to go to the medical centre, it’s now a funeral directors.

On my way home from night shift I was walking down a road and there were houses there the day before and the next day they had been flattened it was very distressing. Once the war was over I was actually allocated to one of the houses that had been destroyed it was a constant reminder of the war.

My husband was in the Territorial Army he came back from camp the day before the war started and he had to go straight in to the barracks. We were getting married on the 2nd of September 1939 my mother in law went up to see him and we managed to get him 12 hours leave so we could get married. After we got married he had to go straight to war. He was stationed in Chelsea Barracks then he was moved to a big house in Eton Square in London. He got shot in the wrist and went to Hammersmith Hospital and after a week he was sent to covalence. He was offered a job training new soldiers but he wanted to go back and join his friends that he had been with all through training. The day he got back to Italy his friend was shot in front of him. He carried on in the war until it ended. He came straight home we had a celebration.

It was lovely to hear that it was the end of the war. My bridesmaid and I were up in London joining all the revellers I was wearing a royal blue suit, blue shoes and a red and white-stripped shirt.

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