大象传媒

I was 19 at the outbreak of the war. During the war I lived in a little village called Abbotskerswell. The evacuees who arrived from London refused to drink the milk they had seen come from the cows - they had to be given it in bottles. The villagers collected clothes for the evacuees who were tired, cold and hungry and did there best to assure brothers and sisters stayed together. When this was not possible the eldest were kept with the youngest.

All signposts were taken away, car, bicycle and street lights were extinguished and windows were blacked out. With rationing in, we'd colour our legs with tea and pencil seams at the back to imitate stockings.

I worked in Newton Abbot as a wages clerk at John Vicary and Son, a woollen mill. The mill provided woollen clothing for the forces. Due to this I received 6 months deferment. I was eventually called up on 26th January 1943. I was conscripted into the ATS and began a month's training in Wrexham. This involved both drill and exams. Those who failed these exams would be sent to the cookhouse whilst those, like me, who were successful were sent to the 67th Light Ack-Ack regiment in East Allington, South Devon. We had gun batteries all around the coast.

I was stationed with 15 others at the ATS headquarters. A fully-trained corporal was sent to oversee us raw recruits and, as there were no other NCO's permitted in our regiment, promotion was not a possibility. Some of us however were granted Special Proficiency stripes and badge which entitled us to extra pay.

Our H.Q., and as a consequence, the entire regiment moved to Ince Castle, near Saltash, Cornwall in July 1944 and in October of that year to Sandford House in Dorset. We moved again in December to Cleethorpes, Lincs. Here we were split up - the men being sent for training for the occupation of Europe, we ATS women to a camp in Derby in January 1945. In March we transferred to Coventry and from here some of us were sent to The War Office. I went alone to Combined Operations in Whitehall until the war's end.

After the war I remained in service until July 1946 and was married that month to a Royal Artillery seviceman who had been working in the Coastal Defence. 12 of the 16 women in our ATS group kept in touch through the years though, sadly, only 3 of us remain. One is the corporal who was sent to look after us and I still correspond with her to this day.

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