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This story has been written to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War site by CSV Storygatherer, Coralie, on behalf of Eileen Kear. The story has been added to the site with her permission and Eileen fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was 15 years old when war broke out and I was evacuated from Birmingham with Yardley Grammar School to Lydney in Gloucestershire. Little did I know then that I had met the boy who was later to become my husband.

I left school at 16 and returned to Birmingham in time for the Blitz. We spent nights in the shelter and still had to queue for water and then get to work.

However, I survived and then at 18 I joined the WAAF. They called me up on 23rd December 1942. I trained as a Clerk SD, or in other words a plotter, in Fighter Command and was posted to Colerne in Wiltshire, Yeovil in Somerset, where we worked with the Royal Observer Corps, and finally to North Weald in Essex which was in 11 Group.

It covered the SE corner of England, so was a busy map. I plotted on D-Day and was one of the plotters to plot the first 'doodlebug' over England and was sent to the Controller as we had nothing that could fly that fast and although identified as ‘hostile’ he thought I had ‘lost the plot’. He did however later apologise.

When hostilities ceased I was made redundant and eventually ended up in Northern Ireland - stationed opposite Stormont on Flying Control.

By this time I had re-met my school-time boyfriend who was now in the Fleet Air Arm. He also had a ‘busy’ war being on Atlantic and Russian Convoys.

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