大象传媒

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This story was submitted to the site by People's War volunteer Pat Yates on behalf of Stephanie Nightingale with her permission and understanding of the site's terms & conditions.

I was 18 when war was declared on the radio. For a week or two it was very quiet and then one day a plane flew over my town. I lived at Thornton Heath just outside Croydon. People were standing outside watching this plane circling when all of a sudden it dropped a bomb on the Bourjois factory where 'Evening in Paris' perfume was made. This bomb killed a few people in Purley Way which was near to Croydon Aerodrome. We all then realised the war had started and people began to make arrangements to have their children evacuated. Also people took on war jobs because the men were being taken into the forces.
I was working in a grocer's shop in Croydon at the time and each shop along the road took it in turns in getting their staff to firewatch at night.
I loved cycling and I used to ride to Brighton on my racing bike to visit my Grandparents. It was about 48 miles. I would pop into Sam's Halfway House at Gatwick, which was a cafe and where I had a cup of tea.
Coming home from one of my visits to Brighton I met a soldier. We had a chat and found out that both of us enjoyed cycling. He had just joined the Army Royal Engineers and was stationed opposite the cafe. They used bell tents in a large field on a small air base. That little air base is now Gatwick Airport. There were a few planes on this base and the soldier told me his job was to cut down trees, trim them down and stick the trunks in the ground to make them look like guns from the air. This eas in case the Germans invaded the country. We can laugh about it now but it was very serious then. Churchill wanted to make out to the enemy that we were prepared for war.

The soldier and I found that we had the same interests in cycling. I belonged to the Cyclist Touring Club and he belonged to various cycling clubs. He had done road and track racing and seemed to be well known in the cycling world. We arranged to meet frequently and finished up getting married. I was then 19 and he was 25. We got married on his embarkation leave in November 1940 but it turned out he did not go overseas until the following March,1941,as they were short of transport to the coast of Scotland.

Whilst my husband was abroad I got a job as a booking porter at Birkbeck, a little haltstation between Crystal Palace and Beckenham. I issued tickets, kept the station clean on my own and I had to cross over the track to the second platform which had one up and one down. The Station Master from Crystal Palace came every day to take money away. I worked from 6am to 2pm for one week and the next week it would be 2pm to 10pm. My relief was another girl like myself. This little station was situated right by Elmers End Cemetery. I did this job for about a year and the railway wanted volunteers for guards, so I applied with 5 others.
We had to go to 'school' on Victoria Station to learn what the job entailed. The training was for 6 weeks, after which we were sent to our different stations. I was sent to Norwood Junction. I was fitted out with a uniform, a breast watch on a chain to make sure we kept the trains on time,a whistle, red and green flags for the daytime , and green and white for night time. We also had 3 detonators if the train needed to stop in an emergency. I would be required to walk behind the stationary train and place 3 detonatorson the line so that if there was another train following on the same track they would set them off and know there was another train ahead of them. Fortunately, I was never required to do this.
From Norwood Junction we had to get our trains out from the railway sheds at Selhurst, which was a bit scary as you had to walk along the track and then climb up into the Guards Van which was quite high up from the track. The line rail was all electric. We had to get the train out at 4.30am and I cycled from home to the station as there was no public transport at that time.
When you first get on to the Guards Van you have to test the brakes. Then you have to record in a book the times you arrive and depart at each station and also include the Motorman (driver). We kept to our scheduled times most of the time. The Guards van was cold and smelly. It had a seat at the side with a little window which we looked through to keep an eye on the signals and make sure the Motorman did not pass a red signal. If he did, we would oull the brake lever.
When the train stopped at the station we had to see all the doors were closed before waving the green flag. The train carried goods such as mail. parcels, papers and boxes of fresh fish from Milford Haven. These were messy boxes and heavy to push out on to the platform.
One good thing I found when I worked the late shift, I couldn't hear all the noise of the gunfire or the bomber planes for the noise of the rattling of the guards van. The searchlights were visible as they moved around the sky.
One the early shift when we started from London Bridge to Tattenham Corner station near Epsom, we had time to eat our sandwiches and drink our tea and watch the jockeys train the horses before we went back to Victoria. We were then told which train we would go on next - maybe to Three Bridges and back with a new motorman.
When I had a spare weekend I visited my husband's parents who lived in East Barnet. I used to catch the train to Victoria and then on the underground train to Cockfosters. I had a privilege ticket as I worked on the railway. My father-in-law was a male nurse and my mother-in-law worked in a factory where they made surgical goods. My husband had 3 brothers: one was a sailor, another, a soldier, and one worked in a Cable & Wireless factory. He wanted to join the forces but his firm would not release him.
When I travelled back from Cockfosters on the Underground after teatime, people would be getting ready to sleep for the night on the platforms beacause of the air raids. There was one time when my train was waiting at Crystal Palace for connections, a Doodlebug came over making an awful noise and you knew you had to run for shelter. The people on the platform started running for cover and a few of them went into the tunnel which was nearby. I ran into the waiting room and took cover under a seat. After it was all over people started emerging. City gentlemen in their black suits, bowler hats and umbrellas would be dusting themselves down and then got on the trains as if nothing had happened. Later we heard that the Doodlebug had dropped outside the station on a bakery and some people had been killed.
At night we had to make sure the blackout curtains were pulled for if you showed a light. the air raid warden would be knocking on your door. We put sticky tape over our windows in case the windows were blasted in: this saved the glass splinters flying everywhere.
Some people had Anderson shelters in their garden made of corrugated iron, but we had a Morrison shelter which was like a large iron table. When the siren went, my mother would call us all to get under this table. My mother just put her head under and she thought she would be alright, but we all had to laugh as her bottom would be sticking out.
I remember hearing a soldier singing all on his own on my train. He sang 'Bless this House' It was so beautiful and it made me wonder if he would come home safely after the war.
I saw some sad and joyful meetings. The war finished in August and I did not know when my husband was coming home. He was in Italy. He had been with the 8th Army (the Desert Rats as they were called) He had been away 4 years and 4 months without any leave. I had no news from him for a while, then one day (it was August Bank Holiday) I was on duty: my train was from London Bridge stopping at all stations. As we were going into Norwood Junction I saw my dad on the platform and I wondered why he was there as it was early in the morning. He was talking to a soldier. As I got nearer I found to my surprise that the soldier was my husband. All I could say to him was "Aren't you brown!" and pulled him into the guards van, waved my green flag, and we were off to Tattenham Corner. In the meantime we had a kiss and a cuddle!
He had arrived home and found that I was not there. My dad knew I was working, so they got on their bikes and rode to Norwood Junction station to meet my train. Dad knew where I would be at the time because he worked as a signalman. When I got to Tattenham Corner I told the stationmaster all that had happened. He got on to the head office and they kindly said that when I got back to Victoria I could take a train to Streatham sidings, then I could go home and spend the rest of my husband's leave with him.
We borrowed a tandem and spent a week in Devon. We could not paddle or swim because there was still barbed wire on the beaches.
After our belated honeymoon my husband went to Yorkshire for about 3 months and then he was demobbed. The Army had given him a nice tweed suit. He looked quite dishy!
I stayed on the railway until I was 4 months pregnant and then left to have my first baby. My 'baby' is now a man who will be 60 next year. He is a keen railway spotter.
I was married to George, my soldier boy, for 59 years.

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