大象传媒

Lena was always the best dressed one out of my seven sisters, preening and twirling in front of mother every time before she went out on a date, or with my older sisters. She was blonde, petite, with forget-me-not blue eyes, and she knew what suited her. She lived to look pretty, and we nicknamed her "the mannequinny", although, of course, she never knew this.

Lena left mother and grandma with tears in their eyes the day she left for war. As she disappeared into the mist, without a backwards glance, no way would she let anyone see her tears, proud and full of it. It was a particularly dreary day, misty and rainy. I remember it vividly, as we all stood at our front door to say our goodbyes.

Now when I recall it - the shipyard, dungarees, muddy boots, red noses, wind blown hair, cattle dung - there is no way Lena would have fitted into working in the shipyard or on the land. Doing your bit for the war effort was compulsory and she chose the "WAAFs". Being the person she was, the RAF probably appeared more glamorous.

As regards glamour, big thick knickers, thick stockings and - horror of horrors for Lena - flat lacing shoes. Till your eyes reached the shoes, Lena looked smart and glamorous in her uniform, hat tilted to the side, when she could get away with it, blonde hair escaping from her hat. As a child, seeing her in her uniform for the first time I thought she looked very pretty.

The war took its toll. Lena's job in the WAAFs was an instrument calibrator and she witnessed some horrendous scenes. When the planes limped back from bombing missions, she watched as RAF personnel, usually gunners, were hosed out of the back of the plane's tail. These scenes traumatised her and stayed with her till the end of her life.

When Lena came back at war's end, part of her didn't. The flighty part was also hosed away to somewhere : we never did get the Lena back home that we knew. She couldn't settle down, was quarrelsome and distant and, sadly, she seemed a stranger to me.

All of Lena's time in the WAAFs couldn't have been too bad, as I have photographs that captured some happy times, however fleeting they might have been, posing in a Spitfire plane, which I have shown here, taken at Macclesfield aerodrome in England.

Until Lena was 72, she would speak about the friends that were sacrificed in the war and point to their faces. She knew them all by name. Her tears would stain her still pretty face, as she remembered.

Maureen Black via Dundee Central Library

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