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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Maleen Saeed a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Nellie Garrat and has been added to the site with her permission. Nellie Garrat fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

When I was eighteen I wanted to join the WAAF , but my older sister said was I was too young and that I should join her in Colwyn Bay, North Wales as war work had to be considered. Then I became a telephonist in the Ministry of Food and was given the rigorous training of a G.P.O operator. I always did as my older sister told me.

Almost all the hotels in Colwyn Bay were requisitioned by the ministry of food. We all had to take a turn at ‘Fire watching’ for which we received 1/6 subsistence allowance per night. We hardly ever heard a plane let alone the fall of a bomb.

We lived in digs where breakfast and evening meals were supplied; the rest of the food came from the works canteen. Our landlady grumbled about making our meagre sugar ration go round so that in the end I gave up using sugar in my drinks.

We always knew on the switchboard when something extra was going on ration because the switchboard went ballistic but we never listened in even if we had time. We were bound by the official secrets act and all obeyed it. There were American forces billeted in the town and so Saturday dances were always well attended. There was the occasional Sunday concert with good bands in the local cinema. My sister did join the WAAF and was finally sent to Ceylon where she met and eventually married her Air Force husband and I began to get lonely for my family and worried about my widowed mother living on her own so I got a transfer to London. The bombs were still falling, but not quite so badly.

I was posted to the Board of Trade in Whitehall, on the Embankment. We had a girl of seventeen on the staff. Employers were allowed dried milk for folk below the age of eighteen so there was always a little to be shared. Our diet was boringly basic but we always had enough to eat. Children and pregnant women were always given extra vitamins and orange juice. We were fit and never saw the really obese people who are becoming so common these days.

On Sundays the only people on duty at the Board of Trade were security staff who accepted and recorded incoming calls,so we might be on duty at any ministry in London. Finding our way by bus was a problem, as the Destination Boards were very basic and it as not clear whether they were going to a place or from it, unless one knew London like the back of ones hand. Things were not made any easier by the anti-blast netting stuck on the inside of the bus windows. At night there was hardly a peep of light anywhere because of the black out. The inside of buses and trains were lit with very dim blue lights.

Buses and trains were very regular and frequent and very crowded. They kept to time unless there was an air raid in progress. Sometimes they were diverted because of bomb damage. How they kept going I do not know but they did and it was just accepted. Everybody just kept going. Of course that was before Nationalisation so why cannot the private companies do as well now?

Working on the eighteen position board in the Air ministry on my own when there was a flap on was a bit of a challenge. There was one occasion when I was on my own on the Board of Tale switch board. Suddenly there was a most terrible bang. It seemed a long way off but was very scary. It came out of the blue whereas we were used to the scream of bombs dropping before they exploded. No one knew what it was at first. It was the first V2 Rocket to land. It was actually several miles from Whitehall.

That was a funny stage of life, it was different but one thing did not change the Cockney sense of humour. Laughter was a life line then. It still is. My sister arrived back from Ireland plus one small child. It was lovely to see them both again and my niece was only two. She was very special to me and still is.

One day the grapevine on the switchboard informed us that there were gooseberries for sale in Leadenhall Market. I gleefully spent my lunch hour queuing to buy one pound of gooseberries. I went home feeling I had a kings ransom in my bag. We found some sugar for that. Fresh fruit was only available in season of course and then you needed to be in the right spot at the right time. One Christmas my mother had absolutely nothing festive to eat until a very good friend gave her a single orange…Riches Galore!

Simple pleasures were so much to be enjoyed then… O the unbelievable thrill when I found some Coty talcum powder. I used it sparingly. Waste not want not was drummed into us at the time- not that it was really needed after a very poor 1930s childhood. I still cannot waste food and try to buy just what I need. On other people the experience has had just the opposite effect, and they must simply buy wily nilly. I remember that when the war ended and the anti shatter linings were removed from the inside of bus windows one felt naked when sitting on a bus.
Food rationing was perhaps even tighter after the war because of the desperate need in Europe.

Our Dutch friends came over to the U.K for Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation by which time I was married with a daughter of eighteen months. We went to London to see the decorations and Tiny (the wife) bought a banana from a street stall and gave it to Margaret. The child had not the first idea what it was or what to do with it. She enjoyed it when she did know. I still have that child’s ration Book.

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