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This story was submitted to the People's War by ANgela Triggs of CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Majorie Brookes and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was 14 when War broke out and left school in the July, when the war started in the September. I wanted to be a nurse but you couldn't do that til you were 18.

I went to work for Electric Construction in Wolverhampton (later became English Electric). I started in the offices and then went into the test deparment writing up reports.

I wanted to be involved in the War and so became a 'Street Fire Watcher'. There was a rota and we would go out in 3's - it took 3 to operate the stirrup pump so that's why we were grouped like this. We didn't have air raids on our side of Wolverhampton - th factories were on the far side.

In 1943 I finally started nursing and began training at the main hospital in Wolverhampton. Before long I was sent to Sister Dora Convalescent Home in Cannock Chase. It took patients from the main hospital as soon as they could be moved away from the town, but we just had ordinary conditions - appendix, hernia etc.

Of course I lived in the Nurses Home and it seemed a long way from anywhere. It was 4 miles fromboth Rigeley and Stafford. There was an RAF base nearby called HIxon and they caused us noise. At night they would train with dummy bombs over a hill nearby and they made a heck of a racket.

Nearby too was Shugburgh Hall which had been seconded by the Americans for recuperations. They had male nurses who were lovely gentle kind people, and when D- Day was iminent they asked some of the nurses to write to their folks in the USa to say they'd been sent into Europe.

The nearest thing we had to a war casualities were 3 young lads. They's strayed onto the base testing ground and one of them had kicked what he thought was a cocoa tin. It was some sort of explosive device and they had shrapnel injuries. We patched them up with first aid and they were treated in Stafford and all recovered.

On both VE and VJ days I was on night Duty. This meant sleeping all day. MAtron was a tirant and you had to sleep when she told you to - she even had a peep hole to check you were in bed.

I continued to nurse until I married.

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