大象传媒

Born 23 11 1925. My education stopped then because everyone was evacuated but I wasn鈥檛. I went to help in the shop because we had a shop and then I joined the ARP. The shop was a newsagents on Grecian St opposite the park gates. We lived there at 29a Grecian St. or 47 Plymouth St, which was a private entrance. My friends and I joined the ARP and were messengers.

鈥淚n September 1940 I joined the ARP with 2 friends. We said we were 16. It was no sense of patriotism that prompted this but I fancied some of the boys. Things went quite smoothly, no great upheavals, no traumas until December 23 and by that time I had had a birthday and was 15. That teatime it started with incendiaries dropping. We, my friends and I, made our way to Y9 post which was on Grecian St at Grecian St School. It was like a display of fireworks as we made our way amongst all the incendiary bombs that were dropping. Messages started coming in and we were kept busy. The thing I remember most was a bomb dropping on police houses at the bottom of Mildred St. There were a lot of casualties and I was very glad I hadn鈥檛 been sent to that incident as some messengers thought the butcher鈥檚 shop had been bombed. Ignorance is bliss when one is young.鈥�

You would be sent to see what was going on and came back with a message to the post. The post was at Grecian St School, where there were wardens. Later it moved to a big house in Duncan St off Great Clowes St. We turned up at the post and signed on usually at 20.00 hours. If the sirens went you could be there all night.

I went to the land army when I was just 17. I wanted to go into the Airforce to begin with because I had boy friends in the Airforce and I went to the Labour Exchange down Regent Rd. I wanted to go in the WAFS but I was too young. She told me I could go in the land army, so I said 鈥淥h I鈥檒l go in that鈥�, just like that and in February I went. I went to a hostel in North Wales, called Eifinver. It was near Pantassif Monastery in a village called Carmel. A lot of the time we worked on a threshing machine threshing corn.

A poem entitled - When we were sweet 17.

At 17 I went to war. People thought I was barmy.
I didn鈥檛 go to fight with guns I joined the Womens Land Army
I lived in a hostel in North Wales to work on the farms around
Topping turnips, threshing corn, grovelling on manured ground.
Hot in summer, winter cold, these were tribulations
Meeting people rather nice had its compensations
Italian POWs with lovely flashing smiles
We鈥檇 ride on bikes to meet them for miles and miles and miles.
Working late in summer, singing out with glee
Maisy dotes and dosey dotes, the loudest one was me.
We sang the latest war songs but I had learnt some Welsh
Saucepan bach I enquired, well it couldn鈥檛 be anything else
Youth鈥檚 young heart beat quicker then. It still beats but quieter
I鈥檝e just watched Bruce Springsteen on TV
Oh to be 20/50 years lighter鈥�

The Italian POWs used to work on the farms. I worked there for nearly 4 years. I came out in 1946. I quite enjoyed it. Then I came home and went to College and went into teaching. You could see the bombing of Liverpool from where we were in Wales.16 of us lived in a house. We were a team on a threshing machine. We worked on Lord Mostyn鈥檚 Estate. If it was very wet on a Saturday morning we could come home and it was 12/6 return on the train from Holywell Junction to Manchester Victoria. We had a warden and a cook and our own rations. We were not deprived of anything. We wore a uniform of dungarees, khaki jackets and green pullovers and woollen stockings.

There was dancing in the village hall in Holywell on a Saturday night and there was local pubs. I was really too young for the pub but went in.

The day that war ended, I didn鈥檛 know it had ended until we came back from work and we didn鈥檛 know until we came back from work鈥� I didn鈥檛 get home then but came home on VJ Day, so I remember that more than VE Day. On VJ Day we had a piano in the street and that was great.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.