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I was with the Prudential Assurance Co. at Holborn and my division — G Division - was evacuated to Wigan in Lancashire in September 1939. Some others were sent elsewhere in the country. We lived in a boarding house with service people initially and they were very kind to us; they took us out to the pictures and places. One of my colleagues eventually married a local chap. After the boarding house, I and another girl lived in digs.

In April 1942 I joined the WRNS and was sent to Alton where we had a 6-month course at a place called Surbiton Towers. We learned morse code and had to read it at 25 words a minute, four-letter code. We had to pass at over 90% before we were allowed to be considered competent and sent to a wireless station.

I was sent to Scarborough with a number of other Wrens. It was a new underground station and we worked shifts 8 — 1, 1 — 11 and 11 — 8. I remember one time when all the lights fell down and as we were underground, we were in the pitch black. However, up there, we didn’t really come into contact with the War as there was no bombing etc.

Next I went to Flowerdown, north of Winchester, and had to intercept messages from U-boats in the Atlantic; the messages went to the transmission room and were probably sent to Bletchley, although we didn’t know that at the time. Depending on the frequency, we could tell where the E-boats and U-boats were and our ships could be sent to attack them. That is how we eventually captured an Enigma machine and could find out all about their codes. These were very complicated because they changed their settings every day and we really needed one of their machines to be able to read them. It was all very strenuous work and quite a strain to do this. I stuck it for two years and then changed my category and went to Wesley College which was taken over by the Navy and I trained to be a writer (which means administration and secretarial work).

Then I went to a holding depot in Rochester and was sent to Greenwich Royal Naval College where I was a writer keeping records etc. From there I was sent to Chelsea Embankment and as I was a writer, I got interested in running the WRNS quarters. I became Petty Officer Quarters Assistant. I loved that — it was a very interesting job. I went to Parkstone Gardens, Chelsea. I had to see that they had their meals which was a very busy job. I think we had about a shilling a day for each Wren — of course, a shilling would buy quite a lot then but you still had to make sure that nothing was wasted. I also had to see that the quarters were clean and well run.

When we were in London with the bombing, we really sort of treated it as routine. We had wire netting on the windows. On the siren sounding, we had to go to the basement. Quarters were almost empty during the day as staff were out on duty. When I was in charge of the register at Chelsea, they were allowed to go and sleep elsewhere as long as they were registered and it was considered better to disperse them so as to avoid the problems of direct hits. If they were able to go home or to someone they knew that was all right. I went home of an evening and I think that was reassuring for my Mother

After that I was drafted to Sheerness where I helped to run the WRNS quarters down there. The WRNS there had to watch the ships coming along the Medway and were dealing with something to do with the loading line on the ships.

After that, I lost my father, so I got a discharge from the WRNS because my Mother needed me. I was very sorry to leave because I did enjoy what I was doing, but my Mother had taken over the running of the shop and she needed my help. I had two sisters, one in the Wrens and the other was in the telephone exchange in Epsom. I was at home for a while and had various jobs in hotels in London.

Eventually I was able to rejoin the WRNS, which is what I wanted to do. Although I had had to leave, I had no trouble getting back in, because I had a very good record. I was sent to Plymouth and had a nice job there running the Wrens’ quarters. I had a job in Mount Wise cricket pavilion, serving lunch to senior officers of all services. I ran a little bar there and we had tablecloths on the tables and flowers. I ordered all the food and went down to the dockyard to get the food and I had to run the budget and keep within it.

At some places I had been stationed, we had not seen very much war action in the way of bombing but I made up for that at Plymouth. The town was devastated in the bombing and we had all our windows blown out at one time. Of course, it has been rebuilt a lot now.

I ended up being posted to a place near Oxford near a munitions factory in charge of the WRNS quarters there. I also went to Culdrose in Cornwall for a while when it first opened, looking after the WRNS quarters there. It was very nice there and the local people were very nice. I remember they asked us if we would like to take part in the Floral Dance in Helston and we did that, which we liked very much.

We used to get a bit of social life. We used to have dances and be invited out. I don’t remember going out to dances but I wasn’t bothered with boyfriends much. My Mother and Father didn’t particularly encourage it, but it was really my choice. I used to enjoy myself doing what I was doing.

In 1946 I was discharged back to civilian life as they had no further need to have large numbers of Wrens. I didn’t really get the chance to say if I wanted to stay in because they just didn’t need us.

I wouldn’t like to go back to those days. I liked the work I was doing but they still weren’t good times. When the Guards’ Chapel was bombed we lost four of our Wrens who were killed and that was awful really.
After the war, I didn’t stay in the hotel and catering line. I went back to being a ‘writer’ really. I went to Epsom College [a private boys’ school] as a bookkeeper for five years, then to a firm of Solicitors in Epsom and finally into the civil service until I retired.

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