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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Berkshire on behalf of Grace Boughey and has been added to the site with his/her permission. Grace Boughey fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I joined up in 1942, in Reading and was directed to the WAAF. I was called up and went to the training centre in Hampshire. I went to Cannock Chase in Staffordshire for training for the Barrage Balloon for six weeks. I was then posted to Ottery St Mary women’s camp on sentry duty had a wooden baron and whistle if the enemy approached! The men’s camp had rifles.

We lived in missen huts and had trouble with black outs. Every three weeks we went to Exeter for a bath. Our camp was in the middle of nowhere. If a message came we would release the tethered balloons. We were guarding Westlands and Yeovilton. We grew our own vegetables and rations arrived and we took it in turns to cook. There were no recipes; we made the best of it all. The food was cooked on a black stove and the tortoise stove was lit only at 5.00. I was there for 12 months. There were several accidents — one or two were decapitated using the equipment. It was decided that it was too dangerous and the men took it over. I was re-trained as a flight mechanic and then a fitter at Weston-on-the-Green, near Kidlington working on the aero engines. These aeroplanes were used to take up gliders, eventually to places like Arnhem. I was demobbed in 1946.

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