大象传媒

I left Goodall Road School in Leyton, East London, when I was 14 years old. I started work in the City at a firm called Battersby Hats, beginning as a filing clerk, then moving to the telephone switchboard, later becoming an invoice typist. At the start of the war, our house in Dunedin Road, Leyton was bombed and we moved to Osborne Road. My job continued through the war and I travelled into central London by train each day, even during the blitz, until early 1943 when I received my official call-up notice. At 20 years old, a young office girl was poised to start a new life in the Army鈥�

My call-up papers instructed me to report to somewhere called Talavera Camp in Northampton. Travelling up from Euston by train, I was driven to the camp not far from the town centre. It consisted of lots of wooden huts spread across a large area of open parkland where I joined many other new recruits for six weeks of basic training, drill and instruction in our new Army uniforms.

This was followed by a further six weeks with No.1 Motor Transport Training Corps (MTTC) learning to drive at the Blackdown Camp, Deepcut, near Aldershot. At the beginning we were taught to drive Army vehicles jacked up on large wooden blocks 鈥� we could steer, brake and change gear in safety - the wheels went round, but we didn鈥檛 go anywhere! There were lessons in how to service and maintain our own vehicles and keep them running. We learnt how to jack them up, change the wheels, grease the axles and replace the oil. At the end of the course I took my driving test in an Army ambulance and passed 鈥� a remarkable achievement for someone who had never driven before. Goodness knows how I managed it. I remember the ambulance was a large heavy vehicle and hard to drive. There was no power steering and the crash gearbox required double de-clutching between gear changes. It had no rear windows and I had to rely on the side mirrors for reversing.

After my three months of initial training, I was now ready for my first posting. I was assigned to the Royal Signals and sent to Beaumanor Park, near Woodhouse in Leicestershire, part of the Y-Signals Special Group. It was never officially confirmed, but was suspected that we had been hand picked for the work to be done here.

The Hall was situated in the grounds of the park and surrounded by lots of huts and tall aerial masts; the place seemed to be a hive of activity. The park was surrounded by a high wire fence and was patrolled by Military Police. Secrecy ruled at Beaumanor - we were not allowed to wander around or talk about what went on there - and we had to sign the Official Secrets Act. We did not even think about prying into what people were doing and why. The training taught us to obey orders and carry out instructions without questioning. If we were granted a leave pass to go home, it was always under strict instructions not to talk to anyone about our work. We always travelled to and from home in our uniforms, changing when we got home. My family were most impressed with my smart Army uniform!

I shared a bedroom upstairs in Beaumanor Hall with 3 other girls 鈥� Betty Colville, Dorothy Elam and Billie (sorry, not able to remember her surname). We were all drivers in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) doing the same job. There was a big mess room on the ground floor of the hall, probably the original dining room, with long wooden tables where everyone had their meals. I remember the officer in command of Beaumanor Park at the time was a Lt Col Ellingworth.

We were told more training was needed before we could be competent in our new roles. Along with other ATS girls, I was given instruction on driving and maintaining a PU (Personal Utility) vehicle. My assignment was to make regular journeys to an unknown destination referred to as "Station X", somewhere to the south. I practiced driving and was instructed to learn the roads and any landmarks along the route off by heart. It always seemed a long way, about 60 miles, and there were no sign posts to go by - they had all been removed in case the Germans invaded. An easy run in daylight took about two hours, but at night, during smog and bad weather it could take much longer.

We were all told our jobs were important for the war effort and it would be necessary to make the journey day and night in all weathers. Stopping along the route, speaking to strangers and taking diversions were strictly forbidden. After dark, because of the blackouts, the tiny headlight slits of the PU gave out only feint rays 鈥� I don鈥檛 know how we were able to see anything. The worst time was driving through what we used to call 鈥減ea soupers鈥�, a thick smog, probably caused by the factories in the Northampton area.

As for the route, I would start at Beaumanor Park and drive south through Leicester, Market Harborough and Northampton, then on to Stony Stratford and Fenny Stratford. From there, driving along some smaller roads, I would arrive at a back entrance to the Station X site, protected by armed guards and a sentry box. I had a special security pass, which authorised me to enter with instructions to go to a particular hut (not able to remember the hut number). From the entrance I would drive my PU along the back of a large old house before arriving at my destination, a long wooden hut. There were other huts nearby, but I had to go only to the designated hut where I would report to the Sergeant on the duty desk. The bags were signed in and inspected. Afterwards, we were sent to another hut close by where we were given a mug of tea and sometimes food. Then it was time to start the long drive back. The journey usually took about 2 hours each way, but often longer in the dark, in smog or bad weather.

Our PU vehicles were kept in a courtyard used by the Motor Transport section at the back of the Hall. At the start of each run to Station X we had to report with our vehicles to the front entrance. The payload consisted of canvas bags tied at the top, which were loaded into the back of the PU. The bags were bulky as they contained lots of papers, but were not too heavy. An armed guard would always accompany each driver on the journey keeping watch over the bags (the guards wore red caps and may have been military police). Although the guards were armed, we ATS drivers never carried guns.

On arriving, the bags were handed over immediately to the Duty Sergeant for checking and signed for at the desk. I always went to the same hut each time. There was a rota covering 3 runs per day, starting at 05.00, 14.00 and 17.00, but each driver would only do one run a day. Our vehicles would always travel separately, not in convoy. There were sometimes motorcycle dispatch riders doing the same run, but they were always men and travelled independently from us.

We knew the important papers inside the bags originated from the wireless huts in the grounds of Beaumanor Park and were aware that the wireless operators picked up messages in Morse Code, which were written down and sorted quickly into the bags. At the time, we didn鈥檛 know what the messages were, why it was all so important or why we had to take the bags to the unknown place so far from Beaumanor Park.

Most of us had other local driving duties at Beaumanor as well as the long runs in the PU. I often drove a Bedford 3 ton troop carrier fitted with about 20 seats in the back and a canvas cover. These were used to ferry groups of wireless girls around within the park and to their billets in the Woodhouse area at the start and end of their shifts.

There was a Prisoner of War camp close to the nearby village of Quorn. Sometimes I had to collect groups of four or five German prisoners from the camp and take them to the local farms where they would work the land each day. Fortunately, I was always accompanied by an armed guard who would sit in the back with the prisoners. The Germans didn鈥檛 cause any problems and were always polite, just like gentlemen, not how I imagined them to be. This was the first and only time I had come face to face with real German officers during the war.

Around that time, I remember working at other places in the area 鈥� Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, also a wireless station, Barrow-on-Soar and Garats Hay barracks.

Later in the war, I was posted to Bishops Waltham where I stayed in accommodation at Mill House some distance away from the wireless station. There were many wooden accommodation huts in the grounds behind the house and four of us shared a bedroom in one of the huts. The dispatch work there involved carrying wireless messages to Worthy Down Camp near Winchester and was similar that at Beaumanor Park, but the journey was easier.

My last posting was in 1945 鈥� to Kensington Barracks in the West End of London 鈥� where I became an Acting Sergeant. I stayed at Cam House nearby, not far from the Royal Albert Hall. The work was routine and less exciting than being at Beaumanor, but it was a time for enjoying ourselves, going to concerts and joining in the victory celebrations. Eventually, I came out of the Army in 1946, returned home and went back to work with Battersby Hats. Just like waking from a dream, my exciting life in the Army was now over.

After the war I settled down, got married, and had two children. For a long time I didn鈥檛 think much more about being in the Army. Then, about forty years after the war, information was released from secret government archives and made public. It was then I realised what we had been doing all those years ago. Beaumanor Park, part of a network of so-called 鈥淵 stations鈥�, was set up to intercept encoded messages belonging to the German armed forces. The messages were written down by the skilled wireless girls. We then delivered the bags of valuable messages in our PU trucks at all times of day and night to 鈥淪tation X鈥�, now known to be Bletchley Park, where our clever people were able to unscramble the messages and eavesdrop on the Germans and what they were doing throughout the war. And to think I was part of this during the critical time of the D-day landings. Looking back, it all seems quite amazing. I certainly felt proud to be part of something that was so important and vital to the war effort, and the peaceful future of our country.

Other related stories written by my sister:

A5173724: They came by night - Part 1
A5167451: They came by night - Part 2

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