大象传媒

Hilda was 19 years old when the war started. She lived in near Brixton with her mother and teenage sister. Her brother was 鈥渋n the services, in the army鈥�. At the beginning of the war, Hilda was given a job at the local munitions factory but on the first day disaster struck. She worked in the evenings as an Air Raid Warden, counting heads in an underground station. Later in the war, working an office at the Air Ministry, she found out that no workplace was safe:

鈥淢y first day working at the munitions factory they got me drilling tank parts. They didn鈥檛 have much time to train us and as soon as I got started I got my hair stuck in a spindle. It just pulled my hair out. All of it went up. I was rushed to hospital. I was in hospital for some time with it. Eventually it healed up and it was alright. But that was my worst experience of the war.

I think if I remember rightly, it was six weeks I stayed in the hospital. I was alright after that. I hadn鈥檛 got the nerve to go back into munitions. They told me I got to go back. But I refused to go, I said 鈥淣o I鈥檓 not going back, not after that, I don鈥檛 want to experience anything like that again. That鈥檚 put me right off鈥�. So it was a question of where I was going to go. So in the end, after a lot of umming and aahing they put me into the Air Ministry. An office in the Air Ministry, where I finished the rest of my time of the war.

I just did clerical work in the office, a clerk I was, I didn鈥檛 have any responsible job, or any particularly responsible job 鈥� just a clerk. I wasn鈥檛 really experienced enough so I did filing and easy office jobs. Quite a few of us worked in the office. We didn鈥檛 work long hours, just normal. I didn鈥檛 like the office, really I thought it was a bit dull. But they were very good to me.

In the worst of the bombing they dropped a bomb right in the middle of Coburn Kingsway, at lunchtime, and everybody was going home from work, and all the RAF were going who were working in the offices on the clerical side of it, all going back from work 鈥� and a lot of poor soldiers and airmen lost there lives in that. That was very bad.

My friend at the time, she used to buy all the stationery for the office and stamps and things from the Post Office. And she was in the Post Office then, buying all the stamps at the time and the Post Office had practically a direct hit and she was killed outright. That was at the beginning of Bush House where I was (now the home of the 大象传媒 World Service). I was there at that time and I was, with the blast, it blew me from the front door, right across the front hallway, where there was spiral staircase going down to the basement.

I remember being blown across this hallway and as I stopped I opened my eyes and I was looking down into the basement. Someone came out quickly and got me out of course. I was alright then, in fact I was going on holiday the next day, and my Mother said 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going on holiday now are you, after that shock鈥� and I said 鈥淵es, I am鈥� and I remember going. I went to Hastings. I went on a train to Hastings with a couple of friends. I had quite a few friends then.

We had do war work during the day, which I was in the Air Ministry office and did, you did that in the day and at night time I had an ARP job, an Air Raid Warden鈥檚 job of some sort. Mum stayed at home. She didn鈥檛 have to do anything. Mums didn鈥檛 have to go out to work or work in munitions or anything, or in the services, it was only the children who had to do that. It was just the youngsters.

I was an Air Raid Warden from half way through the war and stayed till the end. I used to go down the shelters in the Underground every night. I had to go down there and count the number of people that was down there. Every so often they had to be counted - every few hours. We had to count them so if they got bombed they鈥檇 know roughly how many to look for. That鈥檚 why they told us to go down there.

Once they had been counted, we had to go to a big house with a brown floor in it, a local place you went to 鈥� it was the head of the ARP. We had a Warden in there. I only had one station to check 鈥� in Atlantic Road, Brixton. Hundreds and hundreds were down there. They used to line up to go down there. Hundreds of them.

We used to count them when they were going in and every few hours when they were down there; so that we knew how many were down there - how many had gone in and how many had stayed. We went down there and they were on the platforms as the trains were coming and going. We used to just step over them, walk over them. But we managed to get a total of how many of them was there, a rough total anyway and as much as they wanted.

It was about five minutes to the local shelter to return the count numbers. Very near. We had shifts, I remember I used to do weekends, why I had to weekends I鈥檓 not really sure. I did mostly weekends. We did it in shifts. We used to report to the station three nights a week (to find out the rota) and certain nights we had each, we had to report to the station.

The children were the biggest worry, with the trains coming and going. People used to sleep on any old thing down there, on what we used to call pallyasters in those days. Just throw them on the floor and lie on them. They were just like bed mattresses and they used to put them down and that was your bed. They were coming from everywhere, from off the streets, and from their houses. Everywhere they were coming from. They couldn鈥檛 get down there fast enough.

The people were getting on and off the trains just the same. They had to climb over people to get where they wanted. They were going just the same鈥�.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sarah Shires of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Hilda Jenner and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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