大象传媒

I (Vera's daughter, Frances) am writing this on my mother's behalf as she is 80 now and suffers from a form of dementia which makes it difficult to communicate, sometimes.

However she has previously told me stories of what she did in the war:

She grew up in small villages near Ludlow, left school at 14 and worked in a friend's small caf茅 near the train station.

When the war started she had to go and work in the local munitions factory in Tenbury Wells. Her memories of this are having to catch the bus during cold winters to be there for a 6.00am start. Then much of the day was spent at the industrial machines where a COLD milky substance ran over the parts to keep them cool, but made her hands cold also.

Her worst memories are of the accidents which happened to other girls working on the machines: one lady lost three fingers from her left hand when a cutting machine came down on it, before she could move it away. Of course this included her wedding ring finger, naturally a great loss for a young woman.

Another young woman was rather vain and refused to wear a hair net, as it wasn't stylish. It was there to protect her hair from getting caught in the machinery, which is just what happened, and she was scalped.

After a while they worked on a bonus system - the more you produced the more you earned. Of course people wanted to earn more, so she had to try to keep up with the faster working on the production line, which wasn't at all easy. She must have managed OK as she was asked to be a bridesmaid by one girl she didn't really know well, but they worked together on the line.

However it wasn't all bad. The factory did provide a good hot lunch for everyone at a time when food rationing was in force. And sometimes there were concerts during lunchtimes.

Another story I have heard her tell was away from her work, in Ludlow itself. One day they saw a flight of Luftwaffe heading for (probably) Liverpool. On their return over Ludlow one plane veered off and headed straight for the town. It aimed its last bomb at the famous St Lawrence's church but missed and came down in the vicar's onion patch, causing quite a crater. Later the local people found out the pilot was a young German who had recently been educated at Ludlow school and he was deliberately aiming for the church.

As everyone had to do what they could for the war effort, the vicar charged locals 6d to visit the bomb crater, funds going to the Red Cross.

I have to laugh at this, as I'm sure the people of Liverpool, as in London and Plymouth had had enough of bombings by then and would be eager to avoid anymore, whereas in parts of the countryside at least, it may have been looked on as a curiosity!

I also think she was affected by injuries (or may be deaths) of people she knew, and young men she had, so recently, been at school with. Although she has never said as much, she always gets upset if there is a programme about the men in the forces who got badly burned and who were the first plastic surgery guinea pigs. I think perhaps a good friend of hers suffered this fate.

Of course, young people had to make the most of their youth and things were not all gloom and doom. At least living in the country it was possible to supplement the food rationing by shooting a rabbit, or catching a fish from time to time. And of course there were often dances to attend and enjoy the big band music, such as Glenn Miller, which she still loves to this day.

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