大象传媒

I joined the ATS in December 1942. I was 19 and it was my first experience away from home.
My Mam and Dad went with me on the train from South Shields to Newcastle where other new recruits were also waiting with their tearful folks, and we were waved away on the train to Edinburgh. We were all rather subdued, then we had a laugh when one girl looked out the window and shouted, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that thing in that field鈥�. It was only a cow of course, but she had never seen one before.

Our final destination that day was New Battle Abbey Training Camp, near Dalkeith. We were lined up and divided into groups and led off to the wooden huts which were to be our home for the next four weeks. We must have had a meal sometime that day, but I don鈥檛 remember. We were weighed and measured and had our hair inspected for 鈥榣ivestock鈥�. We had to collect our uniform and Army issue clothing and shoes. There were also blankets and sheets to make our little wooden beds before Lights Out at 10o.clock. Then the Orderly Sergeant came round to make sure we were all there. I for one had my head under the bed clothes that night having a little weep. All too soon it was 6.30 next morning and the Bugler was trumpeting Reveille and we knew we were 鈥渋n the Army now鈥�.

By the end of the four weeks we had learned how to march 鈥� that was after the Sergeant Major had taught us our left from our right 鈥� we could salute smartly on Pay Parade and I had learned to peel potatoes, my second first experience away from home!

The basic training over I was posted to Oswestry in Salop for RADAR training, then to Firing Camp on the island of Anglesey with 644 HAA Battery R.A. That is where we practiced firing at a moving target and I never ever heard our guns fired again.

644 Battery was based at Carlton Hall Farm near Yeadon, then we moved to the Adel area of Leeds. Later we moved to Sheffield and then to Acle near Norwich.

Then came D-Day and in December 1944 I went with a newly formed Battery to Belgium. We sailed from Southampton to Ostend on an Isle of Man holiday ship called Ben-My-Cree. We spent one night in a shabby Hotel building in Ostend. This is where I had my third first experience of being away from home. On the bed was a pillow and what looked like the kind of feather bed that was slept on in England, but no blankets. Then we were told this thing was a duvet for sleeping under. Well who had ever heard of a duvet in 1944!

Next day we travelled by truck to our gun site near Brussels, a village called Kampenhaut 鈥� well named 鈥� we were in a field under canvas. The War was going well for us and we only had one scary moment when the Germans broke through and we were told to pack ready to move out because they were only thirty miles away. Of course they were driven back and we unpacked.

V.E.Day came! The Battery was disbanded and most of the girls went to GHQ 2nd Echelon in the centre of Brussels. I worked in R.A.S.C Records Office until I was demobbed in June 1946.

I would love to hear from anyone knowing either Poppy or Dorothy D from West Huntspill in Somerset who were my friends when I was stationed with 644 Battery in Leeds. I can be contacted through Emma Hayton at Leeds Central Library.

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