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Wartime Experiences - By E.M.Bain

I heard the news of the war starting while on holiday in Aberdeen. I was in church and it was a very quiet congregation that made its way out. I went home to London.
The bombing and the blitz started in 1940. Living on the edge of east London we got it all night after night in the shelter in the garden. Lots of near misses and I was machine gunned when out shopping. I dived behind someone's front hedge. I was blown across the room when a plane landed in a gasometer.
I worked at the Royal London head office in Finsbury Square and it was said that our spire was in direct line to St Paul's and used as a sight line for daytime bombers. We made our way to and from the city by bus or lorry - anyone would give you a lift - and many a day we would be on our way before the all-clear sounded.
I was 20 years old and had always performed so I joined a concert party. We entertained several nights a week and 2 on Saturdays to civil service workers but mostly gun sites in London and the Home Counties. We often lost our audience when the siren went but were always in demand.. Our worst night was at the docks when we had to shelter waiting for an unexploded land mine to go off and blow us up. Luckily we escaped in our coach with no windows at 7.00am and were taken home through sights of sheer devastation.
Our house was fire bombed and I managed to get a tender to help put the fire out. The top front rooms fell into the ground floor. The smell of smoke and damp was so awful my mother and I left the next day and went to the pictures. No windows, no doors and no worries about being broken into as everyone else was in the same state.
Everyone helped during raids, my 17-year-old brother and I once cleaned fire hydrants for the hoses only to realize when we got home that we were covered with blood - the debris we cleaned was human remains.
In March 1942 I was called up into the ATS. I was trained at Northants and specialized at Devises. I was picked among others to take over from university students to man the radar cabins that could pick up aircraft, send a signal to a cathode ray tube, and when all members of the team were on target give the order to fire the guns.. Were sent to various batteries on trial as we were the first all female teams, but eventually sent to 542 HAA unit in Kent and stayed there 18 months, shooting many an enemy aircraft down.
I became an NCO and had my own team of 6. We could take a generator to bits for service and put it together again. I was sent on many courses to learn other skills and be able to lecture on them.
Because I had been on stage I was made entertainments officer and many a show I organized and put on. There was a lot of latent talent in a mixed battery. I was also the cabaret act for the big regimental balls.
When on leave I would go out with the concert party. At one site the girl pulling the curtains and helping me to dress was Mary Churchill (now Lady Soames). Another time on leave my mother and I went queuing for a seat in a restaurant and when our turn came an American officer pulled my chair out for me before he left with a charming smile - it was Clark Gable.
After Kent we had been so busy night after night we were sent to Manchester for a rest. It was a long way from London for weekend leave and girls went allowed to travel overnight. We used to bribe the guard commander, sneak out and get on the midnight train. When the Military Police came round with torches we huddled behind many obliging soldiers - all complete strangers - but everyone helped one another during the war.
One highlight of the year on one site in a poor area of Manchester was the Christmas party we gave to the local children. Imagine snow on the ground and these little ones in canvas sandals and cotton dresses enjoying the warmth of camp. All the 'dads' in the battery let down their hair and played with them and we all gave up our sweet ration as presents for them. The locals were delighted and gave us a free barrel of beer for the NAAFI.
We all got flu and pneumonia and were sent to Walney Island to recover, then back to a show site in a better part of Manchester where life was almost civilian. We had a regimental drama competition and a regimental dance band made up from members from a lot of the big bands of the day. One of our lads played saxophone and I never hear the last post without remembering him playing it on a trumpet outside our barrack room and as the last note faded - "goodnight girls" and us saying "goodnight Jimmy".
When the doodlebugs were at their height we were sent down to Wareing on the Thames Estuary to man some very sophisticated new machines and try to shoot them down. It was 24 hour manning and hard going for a bit but when the worst was over we were found other jobs to do locally. For a time I was receptionist at the Grand Hotel, Westcliffe, which was a nice change from the army but the teams were eventually broken up and disbanded. Mine were known as 'Mum and her blossoms'. I wonder how many blossoms are still blooming, as we would all be in our 80's now.
They were hard exciting, sad, happy and sometimes boring days but lots of wonderful memories which I'll never forget and so many friends.

PS
An extra memory of 1940. While cycling home after rehearsal, in a steel helmet, during a raid and watching enemy planes picked up in the searchlights. I flung myself in the gutter as the bombs fell, dusted off, and cycled home.
The producer of our Concert Party - The Mayesbrook Entertainers - used to organize classical concerts for the troops on a Sunday and was killed when some shrapnel from a bomb came through the roof during a concert and pierced his heart.

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