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As a school girl during WW2, I was too young to join the services. My struggle in 1939 was to prevent my parents sending me to live with an uncle in New Zealand.

In 1941, following the Easter Tuesday Blitz on Belfast I watched the refugees from North Belfast straggling down Ulsterville Avenue, where I lived, some with blankets wrapped around their shoulders. They were heading to Fane Street School which was a designated ‘Rest Centre’. With my mother’s grudging permission (she was sure I would come home with nits and fleas) I went to the school every day for nearly a week to help with the dozens of small children whose parents were still in a state of shock. They had camp beds to sleep on and where provided with clothes from a stock gathered up in expectation of raids. Some of the families were re-housed by Belfast City Council but many chose to stay with relatives in the country.

My only other contribution to the ‘War Effort’ came when I was about sixteen. My father worked for the PO Engineering Department (today’s Telecom) and was in regular contact with the senior officers of the forces in Northern Ireland. The Army Signals Corps had picked up an illegal broadcast and needed help to find the transmitter. So I got a day off school and spent the time turning the knob on a ‘direction finder’. Each time I picked up the broadcast I had to phone in the direction from which it came. This kept changing which meant that the transmitter was moving about. Obviously others in different parts of the country were doing the same thing and eventually the lines crossed and the transmitter was finally located on the back of a lorry! Although it had been a tedious pastime it was exciting to think I had helped the ‘War Effort’ in a small way. The big disappointment was that my father made it very clear that I must not talk about what I had done. However at nearly eighty I don’t think I risk being charged with treason!

(Posted on behalf of Grandmother)

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