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I was called up into the ATS as a teleprinter operator. It was hard work. Some days we were very busy.
The teleprinters were like an ordinary machine but what we were printing was going out a long way away.
I started as a private but ended up as a sergeant. It was good — we got more money.

The messages were in code — we didn’t know the contents it was sent in code.

It seems like another world now.
I was working in London at the time
It was bombed quite a lot. So that wasn’t very pleasant.
It all seems like a bad dream now.

You helped each other a lot — and sometimes after an air raid you’d help other people out. There was more community.
My mother was a widow — she was at home on her own. She did go to the country after a while.

Our uniform was a shirt and a collar and tie — and you couldn’t be seen without your cap on or you’d have been carpeted.
I just hope there’ll never be another war. It’s never the people who started it who get killed.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Genevieve Tudor of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Edith Dean and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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