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In Saffron Walden we were billeted in big houses opposite the town green. We, of course, had to keep these billets spotless. I had not been a Girl Guide but only a member of the Girls Life Brigade, a far less practical organisation. I remember the contempt with which one girl, who had been a Girl Guide, watched my attempts at step scrubbing!

We used to hitch lifts everywhere and with complete safety. I never heard of any airwoman being molested during a hitched lift and certainly most of my journeys whilst in the forces were made by this method of transport, with no problems. It is interesting to compare this wartime safety that we servicewomen had with the dangers young women encounter today.

We were attached to the Debden RAF station for about six months and, on the whole, the time there was quite enjoyable. However the ‘Yanks’ finally took over and we were moved again, this time to home territory, North Weald RAF station or rather Blake Hall, where the Operations Room was in the process of being sited.

I had made friends with a girl called Anne Sidebotham who was one of the other three girls with whom I had travelled down from Morecambe. Anne came from a ‘county’ family. Her father was the local doctor of a small Devon town. At that time social status was far more stratified and Anne’s family seemed far above mine. Anne was a pretty girl with pleasant manners, a typical English rose, and liked by most people including the Americans. Most of the other girls I had come to know in Saffron Walden were also posted to North Weald and I was now feeling more at home in service life.

North Weald, also in 11 Group, had suffered much in enemy air attacks. It was unfortunately situated near tall radio masts, which made good markers for enemy bombers. The Operations Room at North Weald had received a direct hit and several airwomen had been killed. An emergency operations room had been opened in Ongar whilst a new one was being built in the ball room of a big manor house, Blake Hall. When we first arrived at Blake Hall the new operations room was not ready, so, when we went on duty, we were bussed to Ongar.

We lived in huts in the grounds of Blake Hall. The hut that remained my home until after Victory in Europe was named ‘Tornado’ and housed ‘C’ Watch to which Anne and I had been detailed. The hut was very basic, warmed in winter by two black round coal stoves with two toilets and two cold-water washbasins in a room at the far end. In very hot weather dampness would seep up through the floor and I remember walking down the highly polished floor of the hut, leaving damp footprints behind. When it was cold, we tried to keep the two stoves alight as long as possible. The winters, during the period I was at Blake Hall, were very cold. I can remember walking back to the hut from the YWCA when it was bitterly cold but very beautiful with the hoar frost turning the bushes and trees into a fairyland of glitter. However beautiful it was, it was still very unpleasant walking to and from the bathrooms which were situated in the old stables and not very pleasant.

At first we used the temporary operations room sited in a drill hall in Ongar. I cannot remember anything about this temporary operations room and probably did not work there very long, maybe two to three months. I do remember that during the night watches we used to lie on mattresses in an adjoining room, waiting to be called for a spell of ‘plotting’. Both WAAF and RAF were employed in the operations room and we all shared the same rest room. Most of the airmen were much older men, or at least they seemed so to the young WAAFs.

When we finally moved into the operations room in Blake Hall we were able to go on duty straight from our huts. Once however the watch personnel were in Blake Hall itself, they had to remain there for the whole of the watch. Blake Hall seemed a rambling old building to me. We mainly used rooms on the ground floor, so of course did not see much of the rest of the house.
However the occupation by the RAF certainly did not improve the building. Of course, there was none of the active vandalism which occurs now and we were under strict discipline but many airmen and women stamping around the house were bound to have a detrimental effect on it.
During the night shift we would spend our off-duty time making toast and drinking tea. These make-shift meals played havoc with my digestion which took a long time to settle down after the war.

In our hut, Tornado, Anne had a bed space near mine. We had tin wardrobes in which to keep our kit but no other furniture. We remedied this by obtaining orange boxes which we turned into bedside tables. We also acquired electric rings which we ran off the light hangings. It was amazing that we did not fuse the light system nor set the hut on fire. On these makeshift stoves we cooked anything we could scrounge from the mess room. Opposite Blake Hall were fields in which cows grazed. These fields were a good place for mushrooms. Some of us used to get into the field and pick the mushrooms and then take them along to the Air Ministry Guards on the gate who seemed to know about such matters, and they would tell us if the fungi were edible. They obviously were because we all survived. The mushrooms would be cooked in margarine purloined from the mess and eaten on toast, the bread also obtained horn the same source. These highly enjoyable snacks came to an end when the farmer put a bull in the field!

The bathrooms as indicated above were situated in the stable block and dismal to get to in winter but in the summer evenings, as we walked to them through the dusk, bats would sweep around our heads. It was difficult to believe they would not hit us or become entangled in our hair, when their wings seemed to fan our faces. Living, as I had done, in a London suburb I had not been in contact with bats before, and was not impressed. I remember, on one occasion, a hot summer night when the windows behind the baffle wall of the Operations room, were open, a bat actually flew I into the room whilst we were on duty. I can remember the officers on the observation desk taking swipes at it with their rulers. I think this happened towards the end I of the war when there was little danger of raids. I don’t know what happened finally but suppose the creature found the way out.

Outside our hut ‘Tornado’ was a large Azalea bush. I had never seen one of these before and I seem to remember that it had beautiful yellow flowers. In a field near the huts grew the biggest cowslips I had ever seen. I was picking these one day when I realised why they were so large; the sewage from the huts ran round the field. Somehow those cowslips did then not seem so attractive.

We were still expected to drill at times and, on one occasion our watch was detailed for a ‘Wings for Victory’ march. We had only just come off night watch and thought we should be permitted to rest, not march. We complained, refused to take part, and were all put on a charge. We had to go before the senior WAAF officer at North Weald and I remember we got a hitch up to the camp in the car of the Commanding Officer. In peacetime he was a minor actor, but was very proud of the fact and very pleased if any of us mentioned it, so of course we did. However he was not the officer who would hear the charge and the female officer who did was not sympathetic and we were all confined to bar-racks for several days as well as having to do the march. I wonder how present-day young women would put up with this kind of discipline. Often the admin NCOs did seem rather drunk with power, and may have been rather jealous of the Operations Room WAAFs. Anyway on the whole the admin staff were not liked.

There were still Americans in the vicinity and we WAAFs were invited to dances. Anne became very friendly with an American soldier and told her family about him. I don’t think they were very pleased and, shortly after, she was posted to Wick in the north of Scotland. It seemed rather coincidental. I never saw her again and would have liked to have known what happened to her.

By this time I had become friendly with a WAAF who had moved to Blake Hall from Norfolk (12 Group). She also had a bed near mine. This friendship continued long after the war and it was due to her that I married. She and I are now sisters-in-law.

Note on Debden RAF Station: Debden was opened in 1937 and had two concrete runways added in 1940. It was famous for its Hurricane squadrons early in the war and for the tact that many more different types of tighter aircraft flew from here than from any other Essex airfield. In 1939 it was in 12 Group of Fighter Command but was transferred to 11 Group during the Battle of Britain. It later became the home of the USAAF ‘Fighting Fourth’ fighter group. Debden closed as an RAF station in June 1975. For further information see Graham Smith, Essex Airfields in the Second World War, I Countryside Books (1996).]

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