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JEAN FOSTER (nee Holder)
WOMEN’S ROYAL NAVAL SERVICE

Jean was born in Sunderland and brought up around the area along with her brother and sister. Their father was sea-going and after his ship was bombed he joined the RNR and was posted to Thurso.

I remember being sent back to Sunderland for a holiday when my sister was born, 18 years after I was, and we spent the whole night in a shelter. The Winter Gardens, The Victoria Hall and Binns Department Store were all bombed. I also recall a ‘terrific night’ when I had to be carried into the shelter because I had a carbuncle and it burst! On my return to Thurso I felt there was nothing for me there ~ I had been interested in becoming a chemist ~ so I joined the WRNS.

I volunteered in 1942. There were three of us from Thurso ~ we went in the Navy, the Army and the Air force. (There were also six boys from my street in Sunderland ~ one became a Japanese Prisoner of War and died on the ship as he returned and another boy, who was an only one, was lost). I did my initial training in London, then moved to Droxford in Hampshire where I trained in Morse code and wireless operation. I went into ‘intersept’ ~ just receiving, not sending messages and was posted to HMS Flowerdown in Winchester where I stayed for three years. Here we were attached to Bletchley Park. I didn’t really like it and wanted to go abroad, but my parents wouldn’t let me as my father had been in the Russian conveys.

We lived in huts on camp and then moved into North Hill House which was a large house that the Navy had taken over. Very occasionally we would have a long leave and this was the only time I got home ~ it took 18 hours by train. There were dances and we could be out every night of the week if we wanted.

We had to be trained to do Japanese Morse code when they came into the War and then Russian Morse code. We took the messages down on sheets of paper which we then put on top of our sets to be collected. We worked in shifts in two rooms ~ there could have been 20 of us in each one.

The night before the D Day landings I went off duty at midnight and though I heard planes going over, but actually it was planes towing gliders and it was an ‘awesome sight’. The sky was black with them and all you heard was the noise of planes. After then, during time off, we went to help out at ‘The Tent Hospitals’ which were run under canvas. We would sit with patients who were coming out of operations or just chat to them and help them with such things as writing letters. On VE Day we went swimming at the Lido and I had half my bikini pinched off the washing line. I wasn’t particularly aware of VJ Day.

After the War Jean returned to Thurso, then went to live in Sunderland with her Grandmother. She worked at a chemist’s shop, but met her husband, a school teacher, when she was working as a hotel receptionist. She has since travelled round from one end of England to another whilst bringing up her family. She worked in Local Government before retiring to Eggleston.

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