大象传媒

I lived in the country and went to school in Birmingham, so I had to commute by train. That could be awkward- trains are late now, but sometimes they never turned up! There was a lot of comaraderie- even though trains didn't turn up everyone helped everyone else. Sometimes we were followed from Birmingham to Kingsbury station by German planes shooting bullets. There were odd occasions when the train stopped and we had to get out and get underneath. I can remember the one thing that really annoyed me was getting oil on my brand new white mac- and I hadn't any coupons to get another!

After leaving college, I went to work at the Spitfire factory at Castle Bromwich. Not on the production line, but in the drawing office, as it was called. That was where they drew all the parts for the aeroplanes, and made the modifications etc. It was a very different life: the Workers' Playtime used to come and give concerts at lunchtime (incidentally we worked from either 7am to 7pm or 7pm till 7am- the machines never stopped).

We in the office earned 拢3 a week and the girls in the production earned 拢20 a week- big money in those days! However when one of the girls on the riveting section gave me a chance to do a bit of riveting I managed to do about 12 holes and I couldn't hold the machine any longer. They were working on whole aeroplane wings- so they certainly earned their 拢20!

I arrived one morning after the awful bombing and it had hit C block, where all the girls were working. That was horrific- bodies and bits on the roof- too gruesome to go into. They cleaned it up- and were working again the next shift. It was revealed later that the German bomber pilot had been landing at Castle Bromwich aereodrome weekly (this was next door to the factory) so he knew exactly where to drop his bombs.

Alex Henshaw and his dog were the heroes- more than any film star! At every possible chance we would swarm out to see him- he was THE test pilot! He always took his dog with him. He was the pilot that proved that the Spitfire could 'turn on sixpence' (ie a very tight corner)- which the inventor had originally claimed.

When they used to fly out over the farms where the men were working in the fields- my father's farm being one of them- the low-flying used to make the horses rear, and the farmer's language wasn't very good (including my father's!) After 18 months' constant flying out that way the horses just took it for granted. Anyway, by then farmers were able to buy more tractors, which didn't rear of course.

Cycling home from the station was not a very joyful experience. We only had about 1/2 inch diameter on our bicycle lamps because of the backout. Dark country lanes and no lights wasn't very enjoyable. But when we were waiting on the station at night and Churchill was due to speak, everyone would rush to listen to him. We trusted him. If he said we were going to win that war we knew jolly well we would.

Several of the fields of my father's farm had their crops set on fire by bombs, and a few of the farms in Hurley had hits when they couldn't get to their targets in Birmingham. Hurley had machine guns roaming the lanes shooting at the enemy aircraft. One night we were watching a dogfight when they shot a plane down. We thought it was landing in a field nearby, but it landed in the Arbury Hall Estate.

We had prisoners of war working for us who didn't want the war any more than we did. They were so much like our own people and they were very likable. When they first brought them out to the farms they used to bring them on lorries with two soldiers with guns...then it was one soldier without a gun, and then no soldier, and then they were allowed to live in the farms, with not even a thought of escaping. My mother-in-law, who lived at Weddington, kept in touch with her prisoners of war, and they visited her right until her death in about 1980.

My husband told me that there was a Lancaster bomber station at what is now Lindley, and in the fields at my in-laws' farm in Weddington there was a decoy air strip. It was bombed quite often and a few craters are still left in those fields.

On VE day we danced on the streets of Birmingham. People say there was free drink- but we had no need for that, we were happy enough to dance without it! It was lovely seeing the dawn come up...I was nursing at that time, and I went straight on to my shift the next day with no sleep- but who cares?!

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