大象传媒

I Vera King give permission for Valerie Oxford to add my written or transcribed material to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War Website

Those Were the Days

I put my age up to get into the Army and was posted to the ATS in 1939. We did not get army ranking, I was called a 鈥淰olunteer鈥� W42971. I did 6 weeks training in Bournemouth and was posted up to Medical Military Post at Northfleet, 6 ACK Division Heavy Artillery (1940/1941). I then went to another medical post at Key Street, Sittingbourne. My duties were general which meant assisting on the wards. In 1942 I went to Chatham to await training for the military police. My training was at Mychett, Aldershot, which was a military police training camp. The training covered first aid, unarmed combat, army law, correction of military personnel. We had no friends! After 6 weeks I was posted to Eastern Command, Northampton. It was hell because there were a lot of Americans. We had to go round the Market Square to round up the girls at night. It was all a bit of a shock and an eye opener to me after my quiet life on Whitbread鈥檚 Farm. My family had lived there from the late 1980鈥檚. (My father had joined up with the Royal West Kents in the First World War from this particular farm where he worked as a farm labourer.)

At the end of 1942 I moved to Colchester. One night I was on air raid shelter patrol when we got a call for help from a male voice with an American accent. We blew our whistle to attract the attention of the Snowdrops (American military police) and on investigation we discovered a G.I. in the shelter minus his pants. An ATS had agreed to go into the shelter with him. He asked her to remove her army issue (knickers) and she said she would if he removed his first. He did, she ran off with them complete with his wallet.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.