大象传媒

I was born in 1920 and my name is Veronica Tournay. On VE day, unfortunately on the job I was doing as a balloon operator, one night we had to do an all night guard, 10-12, 12 to 2, 2 to 4. 4 to 6, when we go to cook shop and we had to do our own cooking, and some of the girls had never done cooking in their life before, so therefore we suffered.

On the 8th May 1945, I was convalescent in hospital, because on my barrage balloon site, we had night duty, and I caught pleurisy so therefore as it happened I was enjoying myself my convalescence in a sanatorium in Middlesbrough, because thank God I was better. I had pleurisy and maybe TB, and here I am at 85 in Trafalgar Square.

I volunteered on 12th June 1941, and I was going to be an aero-fabric worker, that is, covering the Spitfires with Irish linen, and then doping them over with dope to make the Irish linen tight like a drum, but I never went on that course so therefore one day in February, I volunteered to be a balloon operator.

I didn鈥檛 know anything about barrage balloons at all, but we had 10 weeks training at Long Benton in Newcastle, and eventually we went on a trial site. We went for a trial site, and then we went on a permanent site on the train from Newcastle to Middlesbrough, and I couldn鈥檛 believe that when I got to Middlesbrough, there was my hometown. I couldn鈥檛 believe, and I would have to behave myself and not go in any pubs because I am now in Middlesbrough my hometown, and the neighbours will be talking about me, so I was being a good girl, and I have a photo here of myself on a barrage balloon site, and a barrage balloon was 160 feet in diameter. The top half of the barrage balloon was full of hydrogen gas, then the diaphragm in the middle, and below that were the winches where the air went in to stabilise the stabilisers at the end of the balloon, but that was when the sirens went we had to fly the balloon.

Flying the balloon was a very dangerous operation, because if the wind was very squally, it blew the balloon from side to side and when the squall finished, then you pressed the accelerator to make the balloon fly a bit further, and then when the squall stopped, you stopped flying the balloon because the wind blew it from side to side. Barrage balloons were flown in the air to 1500, and they were there to give the enemy aircraft in the air so that the guns on the gun site could aim and fire at them.

During the Second World War, 54 jobs from the RAF were taken over by the women on various jobs, from flight mechanics, engines, flight mechanic frames, so that all the jobs that the men did the women had to take over for the men were released for other jobs like air crew, and when balloons finished on Tuesday, 8th June, when D-Day started it was only necessary for four barrage balloons because the air raids had finished by then. D-Day was Tuesday, 6th June 1944, so therefore we didn鈥檛 need barrage balloons anymore.

My birthday is today. On VE day, on the barrage balloon site I caught pleurisy, so therefore on the 8th May 1945, I was convalescent in Middlesbrough and enjoying it, and I am still here at 85.

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