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My name is Dorothy Booker, and I’m 95 now. My husband came from Yorkshire.
In the war, my husband wanted to be air crew, but he never passed for air crew because he was colour blind. He was very disappointed about that. They said to him ‘Go back, and go back to your own job.’ He said ‘No. I’ve come to join the RAF, and it’s the RAF I want. What other things have you got?’ ‘We want flight mechanic engine fitters.’ He said ‘I’ll take one of those.’ He was sent away to be trained as an engine fitter. At that time, there was the bomber, Hurricane, and the jet. I forget the name of the jet. But they were the two he worked on. That’s what he did.
So, after he was trained, he went somewhere in the Midlands. Then he volunteered to go out abroad, to the Middle East. And then they sent him to Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait, where all the trouble’s been now.
I was married, but I was at home with my mother and my grandmother. My father had died. Home was in Shotton, Deeside. I used to go and hide with my grandmother and my mother under the stairs, during the black out.
I had a part time job too. I didn’t want to go, but they were short of staff, what with the men being away. I was working with one of the joiners in Sealand, working on aircraft. They were making the wings. I was working with him more or less as a labourer. After they were made, I had to go and stack them in perfect position. Then the flight lieutenant, who was in charge then, he used to come and see that they were alright. The factory was taken over by the RAF.

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