- Contributed by听
- Stockport Libraries
- People in story:听
- Terry Parnell
- Location of story:听
- Aldermaston; Slough
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A2670969
- Contributed on:听
- 27 May 2004
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of "Terry" and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.
The ATS said the age limit was 18 to join, but I was only 17 and wanted to join, but I didn't get my parents' permission. Anyway despite all this, I responded to an advert in a local journal asking for volunteers to join the ATS, and I received a letter saying come to Norwich for a medical. It was very scary for such a young girl.
I was then sent to Aldermaston and was given a railway warrant to get there. I got to the camp and it was midnight before I got a bed. In the middle of the night, the air raid siren went off, luckily everything was ok, but another girl was so frightened. I was so proud to be wearing the uniform, we must have looked so funny at our age. We swept the tower, then moved to the food stores.
Later I worked at Slough. In 1943 I ws askd to do waterproofing (ready for D-Day) to stop vehicles stalling in the water. We were the only depot to do this. At the time we didn't know what this was for, but we knew something big was coming. Danger wasn't the thing on our minds, excitement was the only word back then.
In 1944 a group of us moved into a house and we ran the library which I enjoyed.
The average age of the girls was 20 and looking back we were so young, but kept the whole army going with the services provided, a good job we were naive!
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