大象传媒

September 1939 and the outbreak of war鈥� seemed like a dream - a strange dream that I couldn鈥檛 quite comprehend. I knew that the people around me seemed very upset and those lucky enough to own a radio set sat by it non-stop listening to the news, but at the age of twelve, it just seemed to be a bit of excitement to me and my friends.

Things were to change drastically pretty soon though with the distribution of gas masks, which were supplied to every person. Babies had a container-like arrangement for use during a gas attack - the parents had to use a pump to supply the child with air. How awful those masks smelled - a very strong rubbery smell exuded from them and we had to make sure that they had a very good fit around the face and chin. Once we had to take them back to our local office to have another filter added to the original trunk piece. I suppose it must have been an extra precaution against another kind of gas. I was reminded of this a few years later when I was in the A.T.S. and we were made to enter two types of gas chambers one of which was tear gas. Whilst we were in the gas chamber all of us had to remove our masks and experience just what it felt like to be in an attack. Needless to say we all emerged from those few moments with tear drops running down our cheeks, but a heck of a lot wiser.

Air raid shelters were the next thing to come to terms with, most of us had corrugated iron Anderson shelters erected in our back gardens which, contrary to popular belief, took at least a week to dig the hole big enough to take up the space of the shelter - and it had to be deep so that it would keep us safe. When it was put together we piled earth on to the top and sides and planted it with veggies or flowers so that it would be less conspicuous should enemy planes fly over on bombing raids. Inside the shelter we had bunks in the hope that we would be able to sleep during a night raid. No chance of that - we were much too scared to even attempt to sleep. We also kept candles and matches, some tea and milk, and we had a spirit stove on which we could make that cup of tea we always needed. Blankets were kept in the house where we could pick them up on the way to the shelter. Inside school playgrounds, long concrete shelters were being built to hold all of us pupils. Whilst in them our teachers used to give us mental arithmetic problems, spelling, and of course when confined in shelters everyone sang a lot anyway. During one raid on Nottingham a surface brick shelter had a direct hit, and as it was filled with school children and teachers, it had to be sealed up until identification could take place - it was so sad. After a few months of disappearing into the shelter every time the sirens sounded, the adventure began to wear a bit thin, and we decided to stay in the house. If the bombs seemed to be getting nearer, we went into the cupboard under the stairs, which seemed as safe a place as any. Indeed it was in there that I sat with my mum on the nights that Nottingham had its biggest air raid. It was very frightening and we were very pleased when the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� sounded. Unfortunately, it was nearly time to get ready for work or school by then, so no sleep that night. We in Nottingham had quite a few bad bombings, but the other big cities like, Glasgow, Coventry, and of course London, and many others were to suffer much more than us. At times, watching the news at the cinema, and reading about it in the newspapers was heart-rending. How people coped with it day after day is beyond comprehension. Credit to them, they did. One day I had an appointment at the school dentist (his name should have been Butcher) and just as I was leaving the surgery, the sirens sounded. I was so scared, I wanted to go home to the safety of my mum, but she was on munitions at our Raleigh factory and the rest of my family were away in the services, so I knew that school was my only option. I think I must have been the first person to run a mile in four minutes - I just made it to the shelter in time Just before the doors were closed. I believe that time it was a stray German fighter that got separated from his squadron.

There were many new things to think about - one being evacuation. My friends and I thought that this might be the adventure of a lifetime, and off to the doctors we all went for vaccinations and inoculations, in readiness for the trip to either Canada, or America, so we would be safe away from the threat of bombings. However, Nottingham was not considered to be a primary target for bombing, so our adventure came to nothing. We did in fact find ourselves having to take in evacuees from London who did not take too kindly to being moved away from home. We had two girls Esme and Emily, and the older sister and younger brother were billeted next door to us. The four of them led us a merry dance for鈥� about three months, then their mum came to see them, and as I think they preferred the excitement of dodging bombs to the boredom of our little town, decided that they wanted to go home with their mum - the house seemed very quiet after that. I often wonder if they survived the war and I still find it incredible that more lives were lost in the bombings of our towns than in our armed forces.

The rationing was very hard at times. If we had minced meat, it was cooked and allowed to cool so that the fat could be skimmed off it, and used to make pastry crust for a pie on the next day. It would of course be a vegetable filling - soya flour came into its own and became a great additive to mashed potatoes, great potato cakes, and it also made marzipan for celebration cakes. dried Egg which I believe came from the U.S.A. was another good substitute. When Christmas came around we were allowed a little extra dried fruit (if available) so that we could make a few mince pies and a pudding. I remember that we used a lot of grated carrot in among the ingredients - it was to help sweeten, and also to make the pudding darken. It was quite good too. And yet despite the meagre rations that we were allowed, we were healthier kids than we had been for some years, especially when the sweet rationing started. And as for clothes, when we grew out of our dresses we cut about four inches off the bottom of the skirt, inserted a band of cloth from something else, replaced the original piece and then we had another few months wear out of it. I also seemed to grow out of my shoes pretty fast, so when something new came into the stores that did not need coupons I was first in the queue. One time it was wooden clogs, and they were very smart, if a bit noisy - especially when going to work at seven in the morning! I had two pairs, one pair were lace ups and the uppers were in dark blue suede with red piping - I felt really smart. The other pair were in orange and green and were slip ons. The colour now sounds a bit gross, but at the time they were very welcome. Stockings were hard to come by so if we were going somewhere special, we would stain our legs with brown colouring and ask a member of the family to draw a nice straight pencil line down the back of our legs.

Another memory is of a time when lorries came round the roads collecting up our iron railings to help in the war effort. When the Spitfires were proving their worth, the aluminium pans that we could manage without were also collected for melting down and building more planes. I remember one weekend my friends and myself had a little sale in my mum鈥檚 front room, consisting of anything we could scrounge from the neighbours. One of our council officials declared it open, and we made quite a few pounds which were used to buy wool to knit gloves and balaclava helmets and to purchase razor blades, combs, sweets and anything that would let our troops know they were in our thoughts. We were very proud of that, I can tell you.

I started work on my 14th birthday and luckily for me it was in the canteen of the chemical factory, namely Boots. Thanks to the Ministry of Food, we were given a good cheap meal at lunch time so mum was able to make the meagre rations work out a little better. We worked very long hours and when Christmas came round it was just like any other day - business as usual! But, it never seemed to bother us - we all just got on with it. Two evenings a week I went to my meetings of the W.J.A.C. - Women鈥檚 Junior Air Corps. We felt very military when in our uniforms, which we had to supply ourselves. I suspect many a member of our families had to give up precious clothing coupons to allow us to have one. It was black shoes, grey stockings, grey skirt and top, and a grey side hat - we were so proud. We learned things like aircraft recognition, morse code (I was quite good at that) and how to march (of course). We followed the course of the war as well with the aid of map.

Eventually my turn to go into the services came round. I had been accepted into the A.T.S. (Auxiliary Territorial Service) and I found myself making for the local railway station, case in hand (I still have that case to this day) along with about six other girls from Nottingham. We only had to go to Leicester for our initial training which lasted six weeks, and so were able to pop home on each Sunday to see our mums. On arrival at Leicester we were taken to 鈥淕len Parva barracks鈥� home of the Leicestershire Regiment. It seemed huge to us and it took several days for us to find our way about. We were taken to our hut and shown our bed space - this then was to be our home for the next few weeks. I seem to remember that our inoculations and vaccinations were some of the first things that we had to cope with, and they always felt as though the needles had been used many times before, they were so blunt - oh! I can feel the pain as I write. I think a lot of us had an early passing out parade on that day!!

That first night spent in our army hut was a very strange experience, sharing space with so many other girls wondering what the next day would have in store for us. I also felt very home sick for a couple of nights, but we were kept so busy especially on the parade ground that after a while we were so tired we Just did not have time to feel lonely. I met some really great friends and I am happy to say that I am still meeting up with some of them on a regular basis to this day. (Almost sixty years on, and it is as if we have never been apart). The second day we were there, we had to collect our uniforms and the rest of our kit. I felt really well off as I had not had so many clothes for what seemed like years - three of everything in the underclothes department, three pairs of thick khaki stockings, two pairs of brown brogue shoes, peaked hat, gloves, a 鈥渉ousewife kit鈥� containing needles, cotton, buttons, darning wool for mending our clothes etc., a lovely warm greatcoat, two pairs of pyjamas, shirts with separate collars that fastened on to the back of the shirt with a collar stud (several of us girls used to bundle up our collars and send them to a Chinese laundry at Sheffield. About a week later they would come back to us so lovely and clean and shiny, and they kept clean for so much longer than an ordinary wash), two ties, and two khaki skirts that were a little too large. We were told that on no account must we alter them, but of course we did - after all, rules are meant to be broken sometimes. We also had to barrack our beds in the morning before we left the hut for breakfast. That meant that all the blankets had to be removed from the bed and folded in a special way so that the last one wrapped around the other two, and place them in a tidy manner at the head of the bed on top of the pillow and the biscuits - the biscuits made up a very thin mattress and was in three square pieces, which moved very easily when in the bed. during the summer, three blankets were more than adequate but as winter approached and as fuel was very short, we were often very cold at night.

By the time we had our passing out parade and left training camp we were a very smart bunch indeed, both at keeping ourselves smart on duty, and keeping our hut up to the mark for the daily hut inspection. We also had regular kit inspection when everything we owned had to be laid out on the bed in a special way so the inspecting Sergeant or Officer could see at a glance if anything was missing or in need of repair. Shoes had to be kept polished especially under the heel, between the sole and heel underneath the shoe, all buttons shining and stockings darned etc. I still have in my possession my khaki tunic, it doesn鈥檛 fit me anymore, but I am proud to have kept it. (It is now on a model wearing an A.T.S. uniform in the postal section of the Royal Engineers Museum at Chatham, Kent.)

We had a list of trades which we could apply for, this did not mean that you would get your wish though. I chose Signals, but did in fact go into the Army Post Office, a very important job indeed - after all what is more important to a soldier away from home than letters etc. from their loved ones. A wonderful way to keep in touch. Not so many telephones around then, as there is now. To a member of the armed forces, three of the most important things are munitions, food, and mail from home.

After our initial training, I was to come back to Notts because that was where the Army Post Office (APO) happened to be. It had started initially in Bournemouth, but it was figured that it would be better to be in a more central area in England, so Nottingham was chosen. From the early forties until 1947, upwards of five thousand A.T.S. were employed in sorting and dispatching letters, packages, and parcels to our soldiers and airman in all theatres of war - the navy had their own posties. Aside from normal mail, we had so many insufficiently addressed letters, and many, many broken parcels to sort out - can you imagine what it was like at Christmas? Sacks of mail etc. from floor to ceiling. We all worked around the clock, and at that time of year we did many hours more than we should have done, to make sure that our lads got their mail in time for the festive season. The girls sorted and the sappers bagged and dispatched to ships and airfields far and wide, and to all theatres of war, world wide. The A.P.O. is, and always has been an integral part of the Royal Engineers, and that in itself makes me very proud to have been part of it. We were able to repack many of the broken parcels and send them on their way, and the same with the insufficiently addressed letters - it was amazing Just how many we girls on the miscellaneous section could track down and send onto their very grateful recipients. We would have regular tests for speed and accuracy while sorting mail, and if we came up to standard we would get a small rise in pay which was very acceptable. I, and many of my friends feel that we were trail blazers for the women of today, because we did so many different types of work that before the war had only been done by men, and the A.T.S. had proved to those in high places that we were an asset, and so the first W.A.A.Fs were taken from out of our ranks in June of 1939, followed by the forming of the W.R.N.S. (Women鈥檚 Royal Naval Service) the following year. But still I sometimes think that we ladies who served with His Majesty鈥檚 Forces, although many of us were serving on the homefront, and abroad, in many dangerous occupations, we had a bit better time than our counterparts at home. We had enough to eat, warm clothing, a chocolate and cigarette ration, and if we were lucky could obtain lipstick and face powder occasionally at our N.A.A.f.I. (Navy, Army, Airforce Institute).

The war years were really scary, I well remember the nightly trip to the shelter, and when I was all alone at home at night when mum was on war work, if the sirens went, I had to go to a neighbour a few doors away. The steady throb, throb, throb of the German planes were very worrying, and the awful sound of exploding bombs stay with me to this day. I had the opportunity to visit Coventry in 1947 when the Army post office was moved to Birmingham to work in a building vacated by the U.S. Post Office. We were billeted at a place called Packington Park, in Meriden near Coventry. It was set in beautiful grounds and as the U.S. servicemen had been billeted there, it was in very good condition. Coventry Cathedral had been very badly damaged, as had the surrounding areas. I also made many visits to London as my future husband鈥檚 family home was there, and I saw at first hand the utter devastation that war brings. I was there on many occasions when the V.1 and V.2 bombings were taking place. The sudden cut out of the engine, and the heart stopping wait for the alien thing to hit the ground and do its worst, was unbelievable. I can only thank God that we have been spared the horrors of yet another war like that. The sheer destruction that met our eyes as we emerged from our shelters is something that I pray this country will never have to witness again. Yes! it was a very worrying time, I had old school pals who never returned from bombing raids, a neighbour鈥檚 son who was shot down over enemy territory and never returned1 and one who was captured in North Africa. His mum and dad thought he must be dead, but one time Just as Christmas approached they had a letter to say that he was alive and in a prisoner of war camp. What a festive time of mixed emotions those parents had. I was one of the lucky ones because my brothers and sister all came home safe. My eldest brother spent almost all of the war years in South Africa. He had joined the Airforce in 1938 and had been one of the first to go to that area. I suppose, looking back it was to be a good base for repairs and refuelling for the North Africa campaign. He met a lovely girl there and they married - he subsequently came home to be demobbed. but later went back to live there permanently.

The closeness and companionship between ordinary folks from all walks of life is to be commended and remembered. We all helped each other to cope in the best way we could and when our war with Europe was won in May of 1945, and the boys were beginning to come home and want their jobs back within the Army Post Office, we A.T.S. girls were sent to Hereford to re-muster for other kinds of work. My next posting was to the Army College at Welbeck Abbey which is the home of the Duke Of Portland. I suppose you could call it a college for future Army officers - it was a great billet, as you may imagine. I worked for a short time in the underground library there. It was filled with many wonderful things belonging to the Duke鈥檚 ancestors and filled with history. The Duchess was a very gracious Lady, and was very kind and friendly to us girls.

I do believe that our Members of Parliament thought we would all go quietly back to our homes and marry and settle down to the normal kind of home life that we had experienced prior to 1939, but how could we! After those six years most of us had become independent young ladies - after all we had been on gunsites, driven lorries, been dispatch riders, code breakers, and like myself worked alongside the men of the Royal Engineers in The Army Post Office. In spite of the horrors, the enduring friendships we made and the great times we had as well as the sad times, I would not have missed it for the world. My service life has also meant a great deal to me in my later and retired life. I belong to many things that give me pleasure - my A.T.S. Association, The Royal British Legion, and my Army Post Association. regarding the latter, we have a good reunion every year, where we meet up with friends old and new, have a wonderful time, lots of nostalgia. We publish a newsletter four times a year for members to keep up with all the news and this year sees our 20th anniversary.

Due, I believe to pressure from abroad, we are hoping to have a statue for the Women of World War II and I think it is long overdue. I certainly think we made a big difference to the outcome of that war, and I, for one, hope to be able to march past that statue with pride, in the near future, along with the many women both service and civilian. I think it would be a fitting, and tangible tribute to leave behind so that the young ladies of future generations will know just how the women of the 1940s contributed to our Victory. For without our steadfastness on the homefront, and battling with so many shortages and running a home as well as giving time to working on railways, being firewomen, bus drivers, working on munitions, and being Servicewomen, the outcome may have been different.

My life in the AT.S. is something I will always be proud of and it is one of the most memorable times of my life.

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