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DOROTHY BEENY (nee Appleby)
FIRE SERVICE

Dorothy was born in Tottenham and brought up in Sydenham, SE London. Her father did general carpentry work and she had two brothers and three sisters.

Part of my War work was when I was attached to the Guides. A lot of children were evacuated, but I stayed to ‘see what War was like’! At 15 the Guide Captain asked me if I would help with evacuees who were coming to escape the Germans. They were of all nationalities and there were two Russian boys who turned out to be princes. There were also two nuns who came out with the refugees. They stood out as they were huge, very quiet and kept to themselves. My sister Irene and I had our suspicions about them and one day we were walking behind them and they tried to escape. We alerted the police and they turned out to be two male German spies. We also had our suspicions about a refugee lad who lived next door to our house, in a boys’ hostel. We saw him signalling messages with a light out of the window across to someone at Cobs Corner. He was also caught and was a German spy.

The train with the refugees came into Crystal Palace and some were billeted there. Our mother put lots of beds out for the them until they found billets. If there was a family they were given a house. I helped with getting the beds ready and preparing Crystal Palace generally and we did whatever they were asked to do to make the evacuees feel welcome. I would wear my Guide uniform and had to have a pass to get in and out. Later we got the boys from Dunkirk ~ it was a pitiful sight.

The Palace had been set fire to before the War ~ I remember I was scrubbing the family door-step and saw the blaze and stood at the front of the crowd that had gathered.

Our house was hit by an incendiary bomb, but this turned out to be a sand bomb (some considerate person had filled the bomb with sand, instead of ammunition). It damaged the roof, but didn’t set fire to it. I still have the bomb ~ about one foot in length. Then there was a landmine ~ the nose scraped the roof, but the wind lifted it and it landed three doors away and brought the house down. Fortunately the people had gone sheltering in other homes so there were only casualties from broken glass. My sister was knocked out by the shutters and my Gran from the ceiling falling. The cups and plates that had been left on the table for the morning and all were fine, but those on the dresser were broken. We moved away after a while and lived in a house where the windows were blocked up. We slept in the cellar of a drapery shop. Wardens and police would come down for cups of tea and would knock on the ‘coal hole’ to let us know when they were coming.

We then moved to Eastcote where Dad was in the RAF. He had been in the Boer War, the Great War and a volunteer for WW11. He signed on in 1938 and was sworn in before they realised he was 61. They wanted to throw him out but he said they couldn’t as he had got the ‘king’s shilling’ (given to everyone who enlisted).

After leaving school at 15, I worked in London as a junior clerk for Three Torches, a firm making matches in Lloyds Avenue. After the factories were blitzed, I was conscripted to work for an engineering firm at Park Royal, near Acton, which made conveyor belts for various ammunition. There were sandbags all around us and you could see the channels left by the mice going in and out. A well-known radio programme at the time was ‘Workers’ Playtime’ and they actually came to record a programme at our canteen. They entertained us with half an hour of songs and comedy and people came from other factories where they were making aircraft.

The offices eventually moved back to Trafalgar Square and I did fire watch duties, when I had to go on the roof with my tin hat on and see if there were any fires nearby. I was ‘scared to death’. We would knit on the train in the morning and would have competitions as to how many socks, gloves, scarves and helmets we had done for the forces. We had to change underground trains and the journey took up to an hour. It could be a problem getting on the trains as people were sleeping on the platform and there were even wooden bunks in some stations.

When London was badly blitzed, it was amazing to see St. Paul’s Cathedral still standing, with only a few windows and slates broken, when all around was flat. I can remember coming home one night and a land mine was hanging on a signal box, unexploded. All the trains were stopped and we had to find our own way home. The buses weren’t running because of craters in the roads. Eventually a dust cart came which was going to Lewisham, a bit nearer home, so a lot of people got on it, and were dropped off. We had to stand and fortunately it was spotless, with no smells. We got to Lewisham, which had been blitzed and had to walk from there. I left work at 4 pm and got home at 9.30 pm.

There were constantly air raids. Our dog, Nellie, let us know well before we beard the planes, so it gave us a chance to get to the shelter, under the drapery store. Granny had time to get her bottle of Guinness ~ she said, one a day helped her ~ she survived, and died at 98. We had an Anderson Shelter in the garden, but I hated it as I felt claustrophobic and couldn’t breathe. But I did go down on the day we were bombed. I felt as though I was a jinx as all the shelters were bombed after I’d been in them.

I tried to volunteer for all sorts of things to help, but was too young. I was small and timid and was turned down, until I volunteered for the fire service and put my age up a little. I had an interview and was given a job doing clerical work in the watch room at a sub-station, where everyone was a part-time volunteer. I was taking messages from other stations and when we got a call out. I was issued with a uniform ~ a navy overcoat, skirt and jacket; a white shirt and black tie and two hats: one a peaked cap and the other a Glengarry Scottish style hat. We had to supply our own trousers. Sometimes I was on night duty. All the men slept in the dormitory at the top of the building and the two girls who were on duty slept in the watch room on camp beds but would get up to answer the phone. Sometimes we got a message for the fire engine to go out. The bell would ring, and the men would come down, get ready and be off. Sometimes they just had to be on ‘stand by’ (be prepared to go, but wait until called). I had to log them out and back in. I remember when one man didn’t come back. They had been up to the dock fires and he had been overcome by flames and fell into the fire.

The Eastcote station was in an old house (which was meant to be haunted) and there was a canteen with a cook. It took 5 minutes to get there on my bicycle but when I was later promoted to South Ryslip it took 20 minutes to get there.
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Our social life consisted mainly of dancing at Hammersmith Palais. They had all the big bands, such as Glen Miller, Henry Hall, Billy Cotton and Geraldo. There was also old-time dancing at the Lyceum, to Sidney David. There were also shows at the Lyceum and Palladium.

After the War Dorothy became a brownie leader and met her husband, a scout leader. At one time she ran three packs and when they moved to Notting Hill the vicar was knocking on the door before they had unpacked to get them involved in the movement there. She brought up her family and did various clerical jobs before retiring, when she became a Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages, then moved to Leicester to look after friends. She came to Cotherstone three years ago to be near her family.

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