大象传媒

When I joined the A.T.S the first month or so was spent in Pontefract, here we learnt to march and got our uniform. After that we had tests to see exactly what we could do. I was sent down to Devizes in Wiltshire and was training for Radio Location.
After we passed out there we were sent up to Scotland.
One morning they got us all up at 04.40hrs, we left Devizes. We were on the train all day, all night, all the next day and landed in Inverkeithing around midnight.
They'd wanted half a battery we were a full battery - we were surplus to requirements, no one was expecting us and there was no where to put us!
We were given a mug of cocoa - we carried our mugs with us - and then a mug of rice pudding (using the same mug!)we slept in the gym that night - on the floor!
We eventually got our own battery, it was near to Dunfermlin, and not too bad at all.
But they wouldn't give us any fuel and it was so cold. We all had wooden beds and a straw palliass, so we burned all the straw from these to keep the stove going, then went to bed in out full kit, gaiters, everything just to keep warm.
Things ran pretty smoothly, it was great, but there was no action there, so we came down to Middlesbrough over at Teesport, from there was went down to London. We were in camp one night, and it was the scariest night that I've ever spent..... We'd followed this plane into groud level - on the radar - you could only follow them in so far. We knew it was either going to fall on us or either side of us and we were just sat there waiting -
Suddenly we heard a BANG! - it had fallen in Croydon, there was just a big sigh, nobody said a word, then "plane" and off we went again - it was a bit hair raising!
From there we went down to Romney Marshes, under canvas, and that was horrible.
There was absolutley thousands upon thousands of earwigs! We had to roll the tent flaps up every morning, and when you rolled them down again at night, they were thick with earwigs! they were in your bed, in your clothes they were everywhere!
There was earwigs running all over, tracer bullets coming up behind us, our guns firing and we used to say "to hell with it, put your helmets over your head and go to sleep!"
There was one incident, we used to get one bucket of water between four of us, for washing, washing clothes, everything. This one girl Betty, she'd stripped down to have a good wash when she suddenly remembered she had a message to deliver to someone. So she popped her battle dress top on and her helmet and went off to deliver the message. When she returned there was a lump of shrapnel where she'd been kneeling - about as big as your fist - If she hadn't remembered the message, she'd have been killed.
And that's how we lived, for almost four years - and I'd do it all again.

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