大象传媒

I was a young woman working as a hairdresser in the shop,"Dancers" in Braintree. Dancers was a large store with both a barbers and a hairdressers selling expensive cosmetics by Elizabeth Arden and Yardley. There was always great excitement when some make up came in and everyone would be desperate to get it.
There were just young apprentices like myself and older women working as hairdressers there, as all the women aged eighteen and over were doing essential war work. We had only basic soft soap to wash the hair and gum tragent, a really harsh setting lotion which we mixed ourselves.
My customers ranged from local ladies, nurses working at Black Notley and prostitutes coming down from London. These were really good tippers and liked to have their hair swept up and clipped at the sides, showing a bare shaved neck.
They were drawn to the American bases around the town. These were at Andrews Field at Sailing and at Wethersfield and Rivenhall. The Americans would come into town on their bikes singing "You are my sunshine". They would go into the Horn Hotel opposite the hairdressers and we would watch them come and go. They brought alot of life into the town and I can remember dancing to Glen Miller music in the Square. We couldn't just go out and buy new things to go out in and so we would borrow earrings and clothes from each other if we had a date. Blackout meant that there would be complete darkness without the moon so we would hope for a harvest or hunters moon if we were going out.
I went out for eighteen months with an American based at Sailing but he was sent to Normandy. He survived the war and in 2001, I went out to New Mexico in America to visit him.

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