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When I volunteered to join up in 1941 I would have preferred to join the Wrens. However when I went to enlist I was talked into joining the ATS. I was told if I passed the tests etc. I could get into the Royal Army Pay corps and be posted to the pay office in Manchester. I was told that I would be allowed an allowance to live out or be able to live at home.

I thought that would be great as my father was on his own after my mother had died in February 1941.

At the beginning of the year I wasn’t working because the hairdressing salon in Manchester where I had completed my hairdressing apprenticeship was bombed out in the 1940 blitz.

I couldn’t stay at home doing nothing after the salon was bombed. I was due to be conscripted if I didn’t work and I didn’t really want a job in munitions.

So in January 1941 I went to work for Muriel who had a very busy hairdressing salon. She became the very best friend I ever had. Her husband was on active service. She and her parents were wonderful friends to me. I knew I could always stay with Muriel. She lived at the salon. Her mother and stepfather Bob looked after her little boy Jimmy. They were always lovely to all my friends. I always regret I lost touch with Muriel before she died.

A friend of mine, Alice had a lovely house in Stretford. Her husband was on active service as a naval officer. She asked me to stay with her. I used to travel from Stretford to the pay office. I was with the Radcliffe pay office. It was quite good really as I would get the bus to Manchester then on the train to Radcliffe.

After I got engaged to Arthur he wanted me to have a holiday in Windsor where he was stationed. My Dad thought it was a good idea and Arthur got me booked at the Blundell Hotel opposite his barracks. Mrs Horder, the landlady, was lovely with me. She had two daughters, one married to a guards officer. Her other daughter Maisie was married to a horse guardsman and as he was abroad she spent most of the time with her parents. She was only about 2 years older than me and we formed a friendship. Arthur was on duty most nights so Maisie and I spent most evenings together as she took me to all the informal dances at the Horse Guards barracks (also in Windsor). There were also 2 sons, one about 23 who bought me flowers much to Arthur’s annoyance, the other son was only about 20 but we got on well. I was treated like one of the family.

I managed to see Arthur most afternoons and we would sit by the Thames watching the Grenadier Guards swim in full kit. They were getting ready for a big military attack. Arthur was the captain of the water polo team. All his family were great swimmers. My father came on the second Sunday I was there and he brought my friend Edna with him but he had to travel back the same day however Edna stayed for the following week. We went out a lot, sunbathing by the Thames and I got very sunburnt. Arthur brought us back to London the following Saturday and saw us onto the Manchester train.

Arthur used to send dates and fruit to me when he was stationed in Tunisia as we couldn’t get fruit here. He was very generous. We managed to get our leaves together and he always brought me a present home.

I only had about 2 weeks at home after that as my enlistment dates had arrived. I had to meet a few more recruits at the Manchester railway station. Edna came to see me off also Arthur’s mother and Elsie (a cousin of my father). Arthur’s mother and my aunt were having a silent weep and Arthur’s mother kept saying to Auntie Elsie that Arthur would go mad if he was here now.

I arrived in Lancaster at the ‘Kings Own’ Barracks for 6 weeks basic training but we managed to do it in four weeks. The sergeant of the Kings Own Regiment took us for drill every day and they certainly passed some remarks about bust size etc. All in fun of course!

We had to take tests for selection jobs. I asked for the pay corps and was lucky to pass the test and was posted to the pay office which had been bombed out in Manchester. So we were in a temporary building in Southport. Most of the pay office was in the 'Prince of Wales ' building, we also had the Art Gallery which was where I worked as a pay clerk.
There were only a few of us girls so we were very spoilt by the men. I was told to go to Claremont Rd where I was to stay with a lovely lady called Mrs Rothwell. She must have been almost 80 and her daughter Margaret who was about 40 and worked for the civil service. Dad used to come over at the weekends and we would go to a show or visit Aunty Lilian. Aunty Lilian had been engaged to one of my father’s brothers. After they broke up, Lilian never married anyone else.

We were in Southport for about 9 months and then we were posted to our new offices in Bradford where I stayed with Mr and Mrs Walton and their 14 year old daughter Sheila who was at Bradford Grammar School. Mrs Walton introduced me to the church night school where I did all kinds of embroidery etc. The teacher was our next door neighbour. I met a lot of people there who were evacuated from Guernsey as the Germans had taken the Island along with Jersey and Sark..

When I was stationed in Bradford and was preparing to be married to Arthur, I was told of Elsie who was a wonderful dressmaker; her aunt was the court dressmaker to the late Princess Royal who was married to Lord Harewood who lived in Harrogate. Elsie had been brought up by her aunt. She moved to Bradford when she met her husband. Her husband was sent abroad with the 8th Army at the beginning of the war and she never saw him again until he was brought home wounded in 1944. I first met her to see if she would do my wedding dress but Arthur was posted abroad when we should have been getting married. I stayed friends with her until she died in 1995. When I was in Manchester I often went to stay with her at weekends until I went abroad. It was Elsie who introduced me to John. We used to go to the warrant officers mess on the Saturday night. We were invited because she was friendly with some of the instructors. I spent some nice weekends with her and we would make a foursome after I met John. He was posted abroad while we were friends and he was sent to join the 8th Army which was then in Italy. We wrote to each other and he always finished his letters with ‘yours till the stars lose their glory and yours till Niagara Falls’. He was killed in action. I thought at the time that he was fed up with writing. I only discovered he had been killed when Elsie visited me with her aunt in about 1952. He was about my age. How young to be killed at 24. When anyone was killed in action only the next of kin were informed so that’s was why I never knew at the time.

Being near to Manchester I managed to get home most weekends before my step-mother came on the scene. Mrs Walton did volunteer work for the YMCA which was quite near us. We also had a lot of soldiers in a training barracks in Bradford and the YMCA sometimes used to have afternoon dances for them. Sheila wanted to go to the dances, so when one was being arranged, Sheila was pestering her mum to let her go as Mrs Walton would be there serving tea to the soldiers. Eventually Mrs Walton said she could go on condition I would chaperone her. So off I took her to the little impromptu dance at the YMCA. After a few minutes one of the instructors from the barracks asked me to dance. He was the most handsome man I had ever met, very tall, blue black hair and very blue eyes and lovely eyebrows. That was Sid. There was I, flashing my engagement ring and truthfully saying I was going to be married. At the end of the dance and refreshments he asked to see me the following night to go to a show. I accepted. We met each other almost every night and weekends, when I wasn’t going home.

Needless to say at this time Arthur and I wrote to each other every day. Sometimes I would get 2 letters in one day. Arthur went abroad during this period. And I was upset as I knew by the code I was writing to that it was North Africa and the fighting there was bad. Although I was going out with Sid I was faithful to Arthur. I was at a show with Sid the night I got the telegram from the Chief Constable saying I should get compassionate leave as my father was ill. My father was a special policeman during the war. I immediately went to see my commanding officer who lived about 10 minutes from me and she immediately made a pass out and told me she would inform the major I worked for that I would be on leave. I caught the first train home the following morning.

My father died that day. I had applied for a Manchester posting to be at home but when it came through it was too late for me to be with Dad however I accepted it and I went to Radcliffe pay office. Sid was posted to Durham. I only saw him when I had leave to go over there. Then he was posted to the Isle of Wight, so I would spend my leave there. They were living on the warships as they were getting ready for an invasion. Later he was posted to Norway.

After my father died in January 1943 I lived with Arthur’s (my fiancé) mother and family. I had got a posting from Bradford to Radcliffe Pay Office in Manchester. I stayed with them until Arthur and I broke up. I thought it would be better for me to find other accommodation after our split. I always remained extremely fond of Arthur’s family. I always visited them when I was on leave after I went abroad in 1943.

After Arthur and I finished, I was posted abroad. Sid and I always kept very close by writing. I saw him again when we both had a couple of days leave. That was the last time I saw him. We kept in touch until the January before I married Jack (John) Graham in March 1947. Muriel told me later that Sid had written to her and asked her to let him know if I had married and was unhappy as he would always come and take me away.

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