大象传媒

Iris Meredith (now Mary Lambert) reminisces about her experiences in the Women鈥檚 Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Mediterranean Allied Air Force (MAAF) from 1940 until 1946鈥�

I joined the WAAF in February 1940, aged 21, and left in February six years later, almost to the day. I still remember my number exactly- 890509. I began as an ACW (Air Craft Woman), spending one month in training at West Drayton, where I received my uniform consisting of a shirt, tie, jacket, skirt and hat, as well as bras, a vest and knickers with elasticated top and bottom (which the fellas used to call 鈥榩assion killers鈥�!). I was then asked, 鈥淲here would you like to go?鈥� I thought, 鈥榃ell I鈥檝e never been to Scotland before..鈥�, so I was sent there! I was posted to a place called Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow, and you鈥檒l never guess what I was doing there鈥� mending barrage balloons for two years! There were lots of us there at the time, and a great sense of comradeship. We were kept busy, working seven days a week, as balloons came in from all over Scotland that had been damaged by weather or birds. They looked after us well there, giving us a pint of milk a day because of the paint used on the balloons. They paid us 7 shillings per week, and then 14 shillings after I received ACW 1st Class Promotion and was then promoted again to become an LACW (Leading Air Craft Woman).
We used to go into Glasgow to the cinema, and there were dances every Saturday night in the NAAFI canteen. There were lots of lovely fellas at the dances, where we would all do waltzes and the hokey-kokey! Sometimes we would even do traditional Scottish dancing. We also had to go on route marches with the RAF band, which consisted of trumpets, saxophone, bugles, clarinets, drums and trombones. Because some of us were at the back, we would joke around, for example like when I wielded an imaginary mace!
After two years in Scotland I became bored, and in 1942 applied for a commission. I remember at the interview at the RAF Headquarters in Holburn, there were four male officers, all past their sell-by date. The girl that went in first came out and said, 鈥淭ell them you play golf!鈥� Sure enough, they asked me, 鈥楧o you play golf?鈥� and 鈥榃hat鈥檚 your handicap?鈥�, which I suppose seemed quite irrelevant to the job! I decided to answer that my handicap was 18 (which it wasn鈥檛) and I passed!
I was sent to Oxford to become a Code and Cypher Officer, where I was responsible for coding and decoding signals that came into the office. We were trained on special machines that looked like typewriters, but were more advanced to deal with the secret signals. Tailors came to measure our new uniforms (for which we had to pay). So there we were, finally, all dressed up and ready to be posted. I was Assistant Section Officer, 4695.
I was posted to Skegness in Lincolnshire, and after all that training, there were no machines, just a book! I was also in charge of telephones and signals, as well as keeping a safe. This included silverware and a beautiful Lonsdale belt with a miniature portrait of Lord Lonsdale on the front, which belonged to a young boxer called Eric Boon, who was the British Lightweight Boxing Champion 1938-1944.. Our position in Skegness on the East Coast meant that we were poised for invasions, always on the alert. Everyone in the area was told to look for anything suspicious going out at sea.
From Skegness I was posted to Gloucester, working at the Records Office. It was a very sad kind of posting, as all that was coming in was news of men killed, wounded or missing. I stayed here for six months, sometimes having to do marching parades and night time duties, checking up on the behaviour of the girls in the ranks. They used to get up to some wicked things, but maybe we were the same when it was us in their position!
After this, a whole crowd of us were sent on a course to Windemere; I never did know exactly why we were there, probably something to do with administration, but it was a nice holiday! We would have to go marching and running up hills and so on! I didn鈥檛 get to finish the course as I received a message to report to London as I was to go overseas.
Before I could go overseas, I was sent to Blackpool to be kitted out in khaki, instead of the usual air force blue. We were given injections inside the Church Community Hall for things like yellow fever. I remember clearly the doctor sitting in front of the archway, which read 鈥淪uffer the little children to come unto me鈥�! We were all suffering after the injections so it seemed quite appropriate. My arm swelled up so much!
We were then sent to Liverpool by train, straight to the docks and onto the SS Carthage. It sailed to Gourock on the River Clyde, to pick up yet more troops before sailing to North Africa. There were sixteen of us in one First Class cabin- eight double bunks squeezed into the L-shaped room. There were even hammocks in the corridors to accommodate everybody. It took two or three weeks before we arrived at Tangiers in North Africa.
As I was overseas, I was now part of the MAAF (Mediterranean Allied Air Force).Six of us were billeted a private house, which was our home for six months, while we waited for troops in Italy to push the Germans north. When they got past Rome, we flew to Naples in a Wellington Bomber and then had a seventeen mile drive north to Casserta, where there is a beautiful palace. 大象传媒 was in Casserta, where there were Americans, British, French, Norwegians, Australians and anybody else you could think of! But there were no troops as it was headquarters. I worked here decoding and coding in three eight hour shifts. I worked hard- in fact I never stopped. But I remember there being lots of tea! After this I was posted back to North Africa, to Tunis, where I joined the Mediterranean Coastal Air Force. There were different people here, but we still all knew each other and got along. I was just there a few months before being posted back to Italy, still coding and decoding.
I can鈥檛 even remember the contents of the signals we were so busy, the back and forth routine of the signals was just like a conveyor belt. There were loads of fellas and just a few of us, so we had great fun! But of course we never forgot what was really going on around us and why we were there.
From here I was posted to Malta, where we had underground offices, and were billeted in the YWCA. Malta was badly bombed during the War, and I was in fact in Malta in January 1945, when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin had peace talks by the Black Sea, Yalta. We were doing all the signals for the event, and were so busy that we had to call the WRNS (Women鈥檚 Royal Naval Service) to assist us. I was still in Malta on May 8th, 1945 when peace was declared. We actually knew the day before, but they couldn鈥檛 announce it officially until the next day. In the harbour you could hear the ships all ringing their bells and the noise from all the parties. I think we had a party in the headquarters which was in a farmhouse, which had been painted and done up. But to be honest, we didn鈥檛 celebrate all that much- I was actually in bed on May 8th. The mood was more of relief than celebration. I was still in Malta, clearing up and sorting things out, until February 1946, when I got the word that I was to be demobbed.
I returned to England in the Flying Fortress, which was quite exciting. I stayed with my aunt in Gloucester, and I didn鈥檛 really do anything for eight months, but eventually got a job as a receptionist in a hotel. After this I joined the WVSO (Women鈥檚 Voluntary Service Overseas), when the troops were still in Germany. We were asked to look after the troops in recreation rooms. I was then posted in Malaya for 18 months, where I met Walter Lambert, a man from Newcastle, who was in the army. We met in May, he went home in July, I sailed back in November and we were married in December!
I get itchy feet if I鈥檓 in one place for too long; I have lived in Scotland, North Africa, Italy, Greece, Malaya and Hong Kong鈥� and never once paid my fare! Even now I keep very active and keep my adventures going, all for charity- I have recently been abseiling, hot air ballooning and motor bike riding with the Harley Davidson bikers, and on May 25th of this year, I did a skydive which raised 拢800 for an Alzheimer鈥檚 charity. On October 16th I am doing an abseil down the Baltic Art Gallery on Gateshead Quayside, raising money for the RNIB, for the blind. My ultimate wish is to swim with dolphins.

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