大象传媒

Part Two

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jenny Ford on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Thomas and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

The following memories of Mrs. Margaret T. F. Thomas were recorded on 13th August 2005 at the VE/VJ Celebration event at the Castle Mound, The Embankment, Bedford.

鈥淒ad was in the Home Guard and he was on duty several times a week, he used to guard very often the water tower just outside of Dunmow and any other event. I joined up in the Girls Training Corp, that鈥檚 the equivalent of like the Scouts and Guides today, well they had Guides and Scouts as well but we had to learn all about aircraft and to do with the war. It was really early training before we went into the Forces. That was interesting because we mingled with the Air Cadets which was quite good fun. We also had various events, about once a month I think it was, we had parades through the town where the Air Cadets used to parade, we did on a few occasions. I became a Corporal. We had a hat and a badge and I think we had to fix ourselves up with dark clothes. My mother made me a skirt and a top out of blackout material.

Then also I joined a keep fit class and she also made me a keep fit outfit for that out of black material. It was just called 鈥楬ealth and Beauty鈥� and they were a mother and daughter who came down from London, evacuated to Dunmow, set up this class because she was a ballet teacher and we had great fun, thoroughly enjoyed that and it helped to keep us fit. None of us overweight, nobody was overweight in those days but we had lots of energy and lots of energy for dancing too. I eventually married boyfriend and we did Ballroom dancing, not so much of the jitterbugging. We used to start at eight o鈥檆lock sharp dancing and we didn鈥檛 finish until twelve o鈥檆lock at night! Right up until my later teens I still had to be in on the dot of midnight. And if I wasn鈥檛, so I always had to leave the hall a little bit early for that little kiss and cuddle but when it got to just gone 12 o鈥檆lock my father would be out the back banging the dustbin lid! That meant come on in, you are overdue.

Another time I was out with my fianc茅 and there was no air raid warning but it was a very bright night and the moon was shining bright, we were out for an evening walk. And suddenly we heard a bit of a commotion up in the sky, one of our planes had come back from bombing and was getting ready to land at this aerodrome and an enemy plane shot our bomber down. It zoomed, literally over our heads on fire and my fianc茅 threw me down on the ground and laid on top of me. It landed a few fields away, just off the main Braintree/Dunmow Road, right into a hedge area. It was a horrible, horrendous sight, because it glided from where it had sort of whizzed over our heads only at rooftop height, it was terrifying and a dreadful thing to happen just over their own airfield, Great Eastern. That鈥檚 where my fianc茅 was billeted.

VE Day came and he was at the aerodrome but he managed to get in that evening so we had high jinks in the town. Then I think it was only a matter of weeks and he was sent to Italy and the war was over of course. We were engaged but I refused to get married, I didn鈥檛 like the idea of having a baby and no home and no husband. (In those days we didn鈥檛 have any contraceptives.) One year later he came back from Italy and then we married. I can鈥檛 remember how long he was based at Great Eastern and then he went to Italy for a year. There wasn鈥檛 any fighting in Italy but he had a severe road accident. He was a passenger in one of the lorries and he was concussed and he was unconscious for over a week so I didn鈥檛 get any news for quite some time so I didn鈥檛 know what had happened but eventually he came through alright. That wasn鈥檛 very pleasant to say the least.

But I was a very thrifty youngster. I used to save my money, oh I didn鈥檛 want to join in and go to the pictures too often with anybody. That was during the year he was in Italy, I was faithful. I saved all my money up so when we actually got married I was the one that had got all the money and bought all the furniture. He managed to get a job with a new house that was built straight after the war and all my money of course went into buying the furniture. A lot of it was utility furniture.

We used to buy lots of belts and little flowers to make our dresses look a little bit different. I鈥檝e still got my little mender to mend my nylon stockings. Because they were very few and far between so every little hole had to be neatly mended and ladders were done with this device and you did this in and out motion to bring up that little loop and mend your ladder. It looked as good as new when you鈥檇 finished.

After I left the War Agriculture Committee, the ban was lifted so you could get other jobs and I went to work for a solicitor in the High Street. I got 25/- a week at the War Agricultural Committee and then when I left there and went to the solicitors I got 拢2 0s 0d a week and I thought I鈥檇 got a lift up. I was a dictaphone typist there. Prior to that while I working at the War Agricultural Committee I used to go to shorthand lessons every morning at 8.30am on my bicycle in the middle of the winter to have my lesson because she was full up other times or else I was at work. My boss used to bring the typewriter home and I learnt to type at home, so that鈥檚 how I became a shorthand typist 鈥� doing it the hard way! The solicitor went from shorthand to using dictaphones so I gave up my shorthand and started using dictaphones. They were great big iron things with big cylinders and he used to put a cylinder on and dictate. And then we girls used to go in the morning when we arrived and it was like a milk crate which held four cylinders and then we鈥檇 push them onto our machine, with earphones on and away we鈥檇 work. He would be engaged all day with clients but he鈥檇 dictate in the evenings so the work would be all done for us. If there were any breaks we always used to do our embroidery or write private letters when he went to Court, it was all acceptable.

We never went away on holiday. If we went to Braintree, which was the next town, that was treat and that was if I鈥檇 got a few coupons to spend. No holidays, no days out. Dances at the village hall. We had one little local cinema we used to go there. My RAF fianc茅 had so little money but of course the Americans had a lot more money. So before I met my fianc茅 I went to the cinema much more often with my American boyfriend. I kept in touch with him until I became engaged to my RAF boyfriend and I wrote and said that I must not continue corresponding because it creates a lot of jealousy. So I said my good byes and up to that time his mother was corresponding with my mother and she used to send me some cookies as they called them. So I used to have those at home to nibble. Then when he went to France well that was that, I thought. Now one night my fianc茅 and I in the sitting room at home winding wool, in those days they were skeins of wool and I was winding. The back door went, a knock on the door and to my horror upon horrors there was this American boyfriend, come all the way from France to see me. Now I鈥檇 already broken it off, what did I do? I had to ask him in. There, at one side of the room was my fianc茅 and my ex-boyfriend and there was no love between American Servicemen and the British Servicemen particularly. The next day my engagement was off! He was so cross and upset. Of course my American boyfriend thought my mother was going to offer him accommodation for the night and she didn鈥檛 because she knew she couldn鈥檛 really in those circumstances so he went over to the pub to stay the night. Because this American boyfriend had spent quite a few weekends at my home and we went to London once or twice. This was when the raids hadn鈥檛 really started so it was quiet. He said he would take me to a show and I was so excited and we went to a show and it was the cinema and I was really disappointed. However, I got used to some of their language after a while. Yes, there were some embarrassing times. However, the engagement was off for a few days and then after that he crept back again and said how sorry he was.鈥�

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