- Contributed by听
- nottinghamcsv
- People in story:听
- Nancy Blackshaw, Roy Blackshaw, Nora Don and Sadie Holdenby
- Location of story:听
- Stanford-Le-Hope and Shoeburyness, Essex
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A5557395
- Contributed on:听
- 06 September 2005
"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/Radio Nottingham on behalf of Nancy Blackshaw with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
At 18 I joined the ATS, in 1943 at Shoeburyness. I did a basic training in Northampton. Then we went to Oswestry for ACK ACK training. I was sent to Stanford-Le-Hope near Tilbury on the Thames. I had to identify and record all the planes. The British planes going out and coming back. I did this until '44 when the Doodlebugs (V2's)came. We were moved to Shoeburyness - under canvas- from the September to November.
We were under canvas and a herd of cows came through the camp site everyday - it was very muddy! We had duck boards because it was so wet. We had Wellington's and gaters. It was so cold and wet we were issued a tot of Rum everyday. There were a lot of earwigs about and they used to plop onto your pillow as you slept!
When we first got to Stanford-Le-Hope there was no action, so we went to Grays in Essex. There was a big raid so we went back to camp and fired guns, the men were over the moon, they were 3.7 guns. Afterwards we had a party in the Cookhouse or NAFFI.
We once saw a lot of planes going over, I looked out of the TI (Telescope). We saw something fall out of a plane, but the parachute did not open. We never knew what happened, you just didn't in those days.
We used to get a 24 hour pass once a week. 1.30pm - 1.30pm. We used to hitch-hike to London, it was very easy. There were WRVS places in London you could sleep over and then go back. We went to the NAFFI club dancing.
It was very busy on that Gunsite. So close to Tilbury. We slept in dorms of between 16-20 of us. There was an alarm bell. There was an intermittent bell.
A footballer - Trevor Ford who played for Wales he was in the Battery.
An actor - Leo Genn, a well known actor, he was an officer and he would come over an lecture us.
On V.E day 1945, at the holding camp in Gosport in Hampshire, we could hear all the Ships, Sirens and whistles. I was posted to Portsmouth, in proper huts - Hilsey Bay on pay and that's where I met my husband.
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