大象传媒

In March 1942 I was conscripted into the A.T.S. among the first call up for Women to served in the Armed Forces. I received a train ticket voucher which said that I had to report to Durham on a certain day and that I would be met at the station.

I sat in the train from Bradford Yorkshire, opposite another girl and found out that she was a conscript like me. We were met at Durham and were taken by lorry to a college at Nevilles Cross, which was to be our Training Unit for the next six weeks. After always having my own bedroom, I was put in a dormitory with thirty-nine other girls! I became friendly with the girl I had met on the train, and as my name was Brookman and she was named Calvert, I was the last of the 鈥楤鈥檚 and she was the first of the 鈥楥鈥檚 our numbers ran concurrently. I was W/161375, and she was W/161376. After six weeks we were sent to Northampton for a Clerk鈥檚 Training Course at the Technical College there. On completion of our Training and a successful examination, we were then posted to Ripon Yorkshire 鈥� the only two postings to Northern Command.

After a dreadful journey, and carrying such a lot of kit, plus two thick blankets, which were issued to us at Durham, and which we had to take back to Northern Command, we had to change trains at Peterborough and Leeds, we arrived t Ripon at 11pm at night, having had to sit on our blankets for some of the way. There was no-one to meet us at the station, no train staff either, and the only address that we had been given was York Sub Area Group Ripon. Luckily two soldiers also got off the train and they asked us where we were going and we showed them the paper we had been given and they didn鈥檛 know where it was either. They suggested that they took us to their barracks and it could be sorted out next day. They carried our really heavy kit bags and we carried our blankets, tin helmet, respirator, overcoat etc. and discovered that the camp was three miles away holding 4,000 and 300 ATS. We struggled in the blackout and kept having to stop for a rest.

They found a Sergeant Major on the camp and we were taken to a Barrack Room and given a torch and we had to sleep under the blankets we had sat on on the train. The string on the blankets had tightened so much, it was a job to undo them!! Next day we found we were in a very long room and the girl in the bottom bed sat up and we were greeted with: 鈥淲here the B.H.have you come from!鈥� We reported to the Camp Office and I was to be a Clerk (Documents) attached to J Co. Bomb Disposal and my friend was put into the Messing Office.

We stayed together until the first group of married women were released. I put my documents to a clerk behind a grill, and said W/161375 Corporal Fooks and she followed me saying W/17376 Corporal Littlewood and the clerk couldn鈥檛 believe it going in together and out together with numbers following each other.

I think that we should have written to the Guiness Book of Records!

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