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I was in the WAF, but I was there all that long because my mother was in poor health so I didn’t join until I was older and my older sister had her own home. I was in the kitchen of the Officers Mess and I would be on a week of nights and then shifts and have one day off a week and would go home back to Ilford. And when the war ended I went home to look after my mum. I moved to Dorset a long time ago because my sister’s husband had been stationed down here and stayed here and my younger sister come down and she met the farmer’s son and married him and they had 2 girls and when I lost that sister I came down to look after her little girls with their father and Grand Mother and now the girls are grown up and have children of their own. I used to travel on the trains but they were always packed with troops etc.

I met my husband one night when I was walking home and he came along and walked me home and then I went out with him and then got married. He was always an Army man and was stationed abroad a lot so we never had any children. I enjoyed looking after my sister’s children; I think I did a good job bringing them up. I would have liked my own children.

I was an usherette in the West End cinema in Birmingham where I worked for years, most of my working years in fact. The first film I saw was called the Wrecker, it was about trains. I when I started the films were talking films. When the war started I went and worked for the Government testing rifle rods. When the sirens went off we went right under ground under the canals, that wasn’t very nice but we were glad to get to safety.

When I was a boy I went into the band and learned to play instruments, and my grand father, who brought me up, was in the Tisbury band and he taught me how to play the euphonium. We used to play the instruments in the shed at the end of the garden so my granny couldn’t hear us! I took over from the captain when he died. When all the boys grew up they would transfer into the Sherborne Town Band. About 100 years there was a big pageant in Sherborne and the band played there. At the top of the town is the fair field and bands would come and play and gypsies would come a long to the packed Monday Fair.

I used to live opposite the Carpenters Arms at Leigh when it was there, and on Saturday night I would go over to the pub and play the piano. It was great and I would have sherries all lined up from the other customers, the pub was packed and we’d have a sing along. But where the pub used to be is 2 cottages now.
I always used to like to dance and every Saturday night we would go to the dance and dance until 2am on Sunday morning and when we got home we dance some more and have a drink and go to the pub because it was still open at that time; the music we danced to was made by squeeze box I could do them all and loved it and I taught both my children how to dance the same way I could. I danced the Gay Gordons and the Lancers.
I come from County Kerry in N.I and I had 11 brothers and sisters. I waned to train as a nurse in Ireland but in Ireland the mother’s would have to pay for the training so I went to the Midlands and trained there instead because I didn’t have to pay for the training.
At the end of the war there were parties and dances in the street, and there’d be all the tables in the street with food and goodies, people would give up their rations to help put on the party and everyone pitched in and pooled their food together to make a good party.

We made decorations from strips of paper linked into chains. The war was good in that respect, because it taught us a lot of things that we would never have dreamed of.

I had 2 evacuees staying with me during the war and unfortunately one of them lost both his parents in the war so when it ended he stayed and the other went back home. He got married and still lives in Bishops (?) but he lost his wife when she was young — he had a very sad life. The children were 5 and 7 when they came to live with me. One of them was an officers’ son and he was a little bit arrogant and I don’t think we were good enough for him so he went to live with my mother because she had a posh bungalow!
My sister in law had 2 girl evacuees stay with her during the war and they all kept in touch for years afterwards. They came down from London and stayed with her 8 miles outside of Sherborne.
While I was away in the Army my wife had a evacuee living with her, and when I came home after the war ended some of my clothes were missing and my watch but a while after that I received a letter from the child’s mother saying thank you for the things we had given him, but in actual fact he’d pinched them from my bedroom!
I used to milk the cows and make butter from the milk. I would turn the handle on the churn and for hours!
I went through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany during the war. I was called p in 1939 and was in the 94 Field regiment until I left in 1945.

I was asked to clean an Officer’s revolver, I was messing about with it and had the barrel out of it (it was a German Lougar (?) and I was aiming at the Sergeant Major thinking I would bump him off!! I pulled the trigger and there was a bullet left up the spout. An Officer came up and asked me what was going on and I told him I was cleaning it, I managed to get away with it though!

I’m Dorset born and bred and worked for the same hairdressers all my life. My first boss cut his throat with his cut throat razor — his wife had left him and he was a bit of a drinker. I didn’t see him when he was dead but I saw the room after, it was a right state, blood everywhere.

My 2 Officers went to Sherborne School and I went into a Dorset regiment so I knew a lot of people in the Army, and when Sherborne got bombed I had to take some leave to report back about Sherborne and if the school’s were ok. Sherborne had about 300 bombs dropped on it during 1939 and 1940, all by mistake they were aiming for Yeovil.

I was in Germany and sleeping in a barn, I heard the shell coming and before it landed on the roof of the barn I dived under a thatching (?) machine, I was the only one who got away with it. My blanket had shrapnel all over it and most of the others had shrapnel in their backs because they didn’t move.

When the war was finished I went back to the barbers and was there 57 years all together. I was asked if I would like to buy it but I didn’t think I could cope, so I just stayed there working.

In the war I was a regimental barber and if it was my turn to go on Guard I would say to them that I couldn’t do it that night because I had the Colonel’s hair to cut and they would let me off, but I never did the Colonel’s hair and would go off down the pub instead!!

I got married in 1943 on 25 April. She worked in the Ammunition Factory at Yeovil during the war, but before that she worked at the hairdressers too. We had one son but he tragically died when he was 31.

On D Day I was with the 25pounder guns in London and we sailed from Tilbury docks on 17 April but when we couldn’t land because it was rough so we had to wait until 23 April and D Day was on 6 May.

I was the youngest of 8 and all the family I have left is a niece and a nephew.

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