大象传媒

There was more maintenance to do there as well as the driving instructing, and quite a lot of drills every day as the squads had to be drilled. As a corporal, by then, I would have to do a bit of drilling. Later on I became a sergeant and had S and T squads at Camberley with possibly twenty girls in each. They obeyed me very much so. They were very good. They gave me wedding gifts as well. There was a picture by Peter Scott, which has the sergeants鈥� signatures on the back of it 鈥� that was from the sergeants鈥� mess. There were some wooden table mats, a wedding present from S Squad. T Squad gave us a black and white book on gardening and houses with nice gardens. Something to look forward to in the future I expect.

Friends and family suggested that I ought to have a commission. I didn鈥檛 want a commission. I joined up as a driver and although I was driving instructing at Camberley I still wanted to go back to driving, which as an officer I wouldn鈥檛 be. So, I went to the War Office Selection Board and failed it thank goodness. The next one must have been a year or two year, which I failed too. So of course I went on in the ranks, which I wanted to do. I was perfectly happy. After about eight months of instructing girls I lost my nerve. Some of them had never been in a car. They had just been on the local bus. They hadn鈥檛 got a clue on how to drive. Duel control vehicles were used for starters. They were on blocks and were parked in the woods. I taught them how to de-clutch, change gear and steering and, eventually, I took them on the main roads. There was not that much traffic in those days. That wasn鈥檛 under duel control and it was quite frightening. They didn鈥檛 seem to know where they were going. They didn鈥檛 know whether they were going uphill or downhill. They really didn鈥檛 have any idea of breaking or changing gear before a corner. So I wasn鈥檛 very sad to be taken off driving and go into the office to write up travel warrants for girls going on leave. I did office work for the first and last time in my life.

At the second War Office Selection Board I went to the reason for failing was, I was told, because I was unapproachable. If a girl wanted to commit suicide she couldn鈥檛 come to me and ask me for advice. I laughed afterwards and said 鈥淲hat! Advice on how to do it鈥�, but this wasn鈥檛 how it was supposed to be. It was advice on how not to commit suicide.

Whilst I was at Camberley in those days I was billeted right across a golf course, away from the main house, through woods, an open golf course and through more woods. I used to walk by myself late at night and in the early morning in the dark. I might have had a torch so that I didn鈥檛 fall over too many things, but it was quite safe. I didn鈥檛 feel as if someone might come out of the woods and hit you or kill you, or anything. I had my old bike as a means of transport and used to bicycle into Camberley along to The Jolly Farmer. There was Joan Neill and her boyfriend 鈥� I can鈥檛 remember his name. There was no such thing as public transport and, anyway, we couldn鈥檛 afford it. Hitchhiking was normal then. If you went up to London for leave or just for fun you would just stand at the side of the road and hitch. Someone would stop and take you up. Again, it was quite safe, not like these days.

So many things were different then. The other day I heard the word 鈥済ay鈥�. This took me back many years to when I first joined up. A couple of officers there were, as we called them then, lesbians. It didn鈥檛 matter. Later on in Camberley there were a couple of sergeants who were also lesbians. Now they are called gay. To me 鈥済ay鈥� is a lovely old fashioned word for pretty dainty flowers and girls. Not this horrid name that it has now. It was accepted those people were gay 鈥� as it is called now- it didn鈥檛 matter.

We used to have dances at the NAFFI, which is where I met Dad. The NAFFI was along the Portsmouth road. It was three Nissan huts put together, with interconnecting doors. The first one was just an empty hut with a stage at one end of it, which was used for dancing. At one dance in February 1943 I was dancing with someone from the Staff College in Camberley, saw Dad at the doorway connecting to the second Nissan hut, which of course was the bar. I asked 鈥淲ho is that handsome man there?鈥� This bloke knew him so he introduced me to Dad. We then went through to the bar where I knocked his beer over. Why he had anything to do with me after that I don鈥檛 know, but that was the beginning of a long time together. A happy time together.

It was later on in that year when the National Savings Certificates were being advertised. There was a leaflet coming out suggesting that people bought these and started saving. I had a big photograph of Dad,which I put onto a locker in my room. I was sitting at the end of my bed with my hands folded so that it showed the engagement ring and they took a photograph of me. This appeared in the leaflet which advertised National Savings Certificates, in which I was supposed to have said I was saving for a nest egg for our future. I did save something, but I don鈥檛 think that I actually said that.

Going back to the York days, in the 1940s at the beginning of the war. The streets were all blacked out and it was very black indeed. I had a boyfriend called Colin Doran. Later there was a newsreader called Colin Doran and I often wondered if it was the same man. He was in the Intelligence Corps. We used to meet in the Market Place, a big area in York. The only way to know that you were meeting the right person, as you couldn鈥檛 see because it was so dark, was to whistle a tune or hum, and our tune was 鈥淚n the Mood鈥�. So you鈥檇 go along gaily singing 鈥淚n the Mood鈥� and then you would hear someone else singing that tune and it would be Colin Doran. You never heard of people being raped or murdered in those days. Doors were always open. As we all worked different times nobody would ever have a key. There must have been a certain amount of thieving of cars in those days as I remember that we had to take the rotary arm from the distributor to immobilise the car. I think that we must have taken the key as well.

Also, when I was driving Staff Officers I was very particular. The general staff officers had scarlet bands around their caps and scarlet lapels and, therefore, I wore scarlet lipstick. If I was driving a medical man he had a maroon cap band and maroon lapels, therefore I wore maroon lipstick. It was a very blue maroon lipstick if I was driving the padres who had purple bands. I remember I didn鈥檛 drive any pay corps or any other which had either yellow or green bands and lapels, which is just as well.

I see from my notes that I was discharged under para. 11 as I was pregnant on 23 June 1944. I left Camberley a month previously. I was with the ATS Motor Transport No.3 Company. I went to Hilldon College, Hurstpierpoint, which was near where Dad鈥檚 mother and father lived and I stayed with them. Dad was then stationed with the Guards Armed Division somewhere near Brighton and was able to come home some evenings. After 6th June we saw gliders and planes crossing over to France and as Grandpa was still in the army, RQMS Royal Sussex Regiment, he was aware of fleet movements but of course told us nothing. After about 10th June Dad did not come home again until May 1945 at 3.00pm. I was at Eastfield resting on the sofa in the sitting room. I remember so well seeing him walk past the window. I ran to the door to greet him and later showed him our son, Darrell, who was asleep in his pram under our damson tree, wearing a romper suit made out of old curtains which had a rust design on them. Dad was so much thinner than when I last saw him, almost a year before. It was September and we went down to stay at Hilldon with Granny and Grandpa, which was the first time they saw Darrell, their first grandchild. Then again, in January 1946.

March 2005

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