Tell us how old you were when the war started.

I was about 19, 19 years old. I was in the reserve position, soldiers uniforms, always worked on those things. So I was there till I joined up sort of thing.

Tell me what you actually did, what was your day?

In the factory. Well, used to make coats and do the pockets, welts and all that sort of thing. I was top machinist. That's all we did, we worked all day and when the bombs were overhead and all that, we still had to work. We could have gone down in an air raid shelter but we preferred to stay up there all of us, but there was always news coming in, someone down Bethnal Green, you must have heard of that, been killed and up the city, bombs dropping you know. And as I say the first part of the war, Tony got killed doing a job in his father's van going to the city.

Who was Tony?

Tony Williams was a friend, only a youngster, he's a friend, very nice friend.

And what happened to him?

He was blown up in the van, in his dad's van. And we took some flowers to him, don't suppose you want to know that, my mum took me to his house with a big bunch of lilies, and that was sad, that was that part. And another part, we just accepted what it was, and I was running home knowing we've got to come to the air raid shelter, we're in a school, after we've been blasted out. We've been blasted out, there was a big garage opposite us, a bus garage and probably the lights shine brought the jerries over to us. Anyway we're blasted out, couldn't get down the stairs, all the lights gone everything like that. My sister and mother, both got cut in the head but not bad, and then the ARP come and rescued us, took us away to this school and we stayed there about two weeks I think it was, and we went to work from there, from the school, and after that they got us a flat because we couldn't go back to the house no more and they gave us a flat, they even gave us beds cos we had nothing left, to start us off in the flat. After that I wanted to get away and as we were Bevin's bells, that's what we were called, I wanted to get away to them, so eventually I got away and we went to Kennington or Kensington, Princess Margaret's Home and joined up there, and from there they took us with all our tickets to Sheerness, that's the first, Sheerness. Stayed there a night, not allowed to work with sailors because they had their own people, then the next morning they took us over to the Isle of Sheppey, over the Swale bridge to the Isle of Sheppey, and in the ?? all the officers training unit, you know, all the training chaps. There about two or three months.

What were you doing there?

Serving, serving in a big canteen, great big canteen, you've never seen anything like it. And it was all different bars, chocolate bars and shaving stuff for the soldiers, for the airforce. And we used to serve meals for them.

Were you in uniform?

In uniform, yes. Nippies hat, after we had the uniform when we went out walking. And a blue dress and a blue thing and the NAAFI stuck across there, ran across there, Navy Army and Air Force Institute. There a couple of months. Used to go out on the mobiles and serve the air force. If they didn't like their food in the cookhouse they'd come and buy off us. And we used to sell them cakes, drinks, tea, coffee and Coca Cola, Pepsi-Cola, all that sort of thing.

Were you in a van or something?

In a van, served off the back of a van. Go round to where the soldiers, the air force was doing their training. And well I was only there two months. After that, I went to the Isle of Sheppey and I was there about five, five and a half years I think it was, and there was Canadians, it's a non-combat unit, the soldiers had been to war, they'd come home, been hospitalised and they come and went, and we had all different units.

Tell me about all the different types of soldiers, the different nationalities.

Well first of all there was the Polish, and they weren't there all that long, maybe a week. And then came the French, the rowdy lot of French, they drank too much and we had to close the bar one night because they were throwing their bottles around and the MPs, that's the police, came and closed it and got them out of it. Oh then there's the Canadian, they come from Calgary, Saskatchewan, Ontario, all over, Toronto. And it was very enjoyable, we worked hard and when you join up, it says join the NAAFI and see the world, but it should have been join the NAAFI and scrub the world. Cos that's what we did a lot of. But after that it was all serving till 9 o'clock at night, and then if we weren't finished clearing up in the canteen and that, do all the cups and saucers and places in, the soldiers would offer and come and help us, they'd do a bit of washing up, but we had some kitchen maids in there so they did it normally, but we'd help so we can get home earlier.

Did they keep the officers mess and the men's separate?

Separate. But they used to, the officers used to come in.

Tell me about the officers and the men.

I didn't meet many officers, because they must have been separate from us, it was just the average, up to the sergeant major that sort of thing. But they used to have court martials there and serious ones, we used to have to be quiet and we were told to be quiet because there was murderers and all that sort of thing, I never knew that was going on but they were being tried. Also we did have some parachutists, the Germans come there but I never saw them. We were always working. But the soldiers saw them. We had to go through the gates, whenever we went out, come forth and be recognised, that sort of thing. And every night we used to have the Canadian, whatever you call, but every unit that you went to, like the Canadians, you had theirs, and the French you had theirs, the shoddy-aires, you know, the French. So they all had something and they used to lower the flag and hide, put the flat up, that sort of thing, and we used to be in our billets, the dormitories, we could see what was going on but we hardly had time to watch them.

Did the women make friends with the men?

There was a bit of fraternising yes, I had a friend there as well, but he had to go. And in the end, he went to Casino ?? it was and he joined the parachutists and he used to jump out of aeroplanes. And we were very good friends. I don't know what else to tell you. We used to go, serve in the bar in the dinner time, we had to go back, after we'd done all our work, made our beds, scrubbed around and cleaned up, got the canteen prepared, we used to go and make ourselves up so as we can go in front the bar, and then 2 o'clock I think it was, we went off and we wrote letters home and got together, all the girls got together, that sort of thing, or slept, we were that tired. Of a night time, 5 o'clock we opened up again and till about 9, half past something like that. But we used to have dances on the weekends and sometimes a couple of us were told to serve and we had all our stuff laid out the end of the dance hall and the soldiers used to come buy their drinks again, all that sort of thing.

Did you enjoy it?

Oh I loved it. I loved it. They used to come and drag me out dancing, I loved it, and the managers come after me, you back, get on with your serving. It was great, it really was. But the ammunition dumps used to be blown up but they used to say, oh thought you'd gone Doris and all that lark, I said why, cos the ammunition dump had been blown up. But it was nothing to do with me really, we were well apart from it. It was on the same ground sort of thing but away from us. Like the soldiers were, all in their billets, away from us.

Were you frightened ever?

It never frightened me, only when I was going over the Swale bridge, that worried me when I went to the Isle of Sheppey, I thought I wouldn't get back, but in London, that really worried me. We was terrified.

Tell me about that.

Well when we were blasted out, buzz bombs coming, go down the street, incendiaries coming and you're running along to get home, it's terrible.

You're running along the street and what?

All these buzz, incendiaries, it's alight everywhere, you could see all the flares everywhere. It may not necessarily have been the street I was in, which was Ringwood Road, going to this Jack's mum's house where the air raid shelter was, but we was running towards that but you could see it all around. It's been frightening but as I say it made up for it after the war with all these different soldiers, all nice boys. You was doing something for the war. Although when we were making uniforms they said you're doing your share for the war, and the girls used to put letters in the pockets of the soldiers and that. I never did, didn't want that. Yes, it was fun but London was a terrible thing, I think so. Did you go to it, London? No? Terrible. It seemed like, whenever we come home from work, the sirens were going, so we knew the bombers were coming. So we wouldn't go downstairs in an air raid shelter, actually it was not a proper air raid shelter, it was in this great big house and it's a downstairs floor, what d'you call it, basement affair. And people from the house used to go there when the siren was going but we didn't, we were yanks us girls, three girls and our mum, and so we were expecting it. We could hear the bombers overhead, we didn't know we was being blasted out. We saw a big bang and then mum you all right? Asked them if they were all right.

But they were all right though.

Well, Lily was bleeding. The funny part was, Lil was holding a book and when we came out, we were taken out, I had this book with all blood over it, it was their blood and got into my hands, so don't know how that happened and our sweets went, slid across the room and we were round the fire, it was a little fire and we were all sitting round it, wouldn't go down, and the next thing, lights gone, everything gone, mum I'm safe. You there Dolly, you there Lily, and she was worried where we were. Ollie was out with her boyfriend and that worried us and she didn't turn up for two days, thought maybe she'd been killed but she hadn't, she was with her boyfriend in his house. So it's terrifying experience but I can't tell you a lot about it, it was just frightening. And nothing was left of our place, we had no furniture left. And it was only a blast, it wasn't a actual bomb on you, the bomb was across the road, but it blasted us out, all up the top.

Was there anything left in the house?

When we did go back, we could see down, all rags were round and beds and all that sort of thing, you couldn't take anything out. So what we wore was what we, but that's what we had, what we wore. We never got back in that house. Great big house, about four storeys high, had palatial poles and it had stairs, before you get into the double doors to go up into your part. That's in Welsh Street. Can't tell you no more, just brings it back.

Think about what happened next.

Well we just had to go to work from there every day, all the lot of us and then I tried my hardest to get away and I got it, I went to the doctor and he said yes you can go but he didn't want me to go, he said you're in a reserved position, you've got your mother to think of and all that sort of thing. But I just wanted to go, I was scared. I used to come back when it was a weekend, we were due a weekend, used to have my NAAFI uniform on, the khaki.

So where was your mum living after the bomb?

In the school. And then they took us all to a school, we lived there about a fortnight. And then they came and they gave us a council flat and furniture to go in it. And then you built your home up from there onwards. I think they gave you a bit of money, I'm not sure, to help you build your stuff. And we lived in that flat ever since, 10 Blackdown House. After that I got away and there starts my memoirs of the war with all the soldiers and that, and all the transit camps where the soldiers, they'd been to war, got injured and were ill, and they passed through to fight again.

Do you remember the build-up to D-Day? D'you remember 1944 when all the troops were gathering to attack?

No, we weren't near the beaches were we. Nowhere near there, and all our boys were, just a few boys left on camp at that particular time, having a drink, had a drink myself in the NAAFI. To celebrate, no that was when the war was over, that was it wasn't it. Can't remember.

Tell me what happened when the war came to an end, can you remember?

I stayed, it was nothing different, all the soldiers were glad to go home. I stayed right to the end to wave most of them off, go back to their different parts of Canada. So there's not a lot I can remember to tell you.

Was it the first time you'd been away from home?

Yes. First time ever.

Tell me how that felt.

Just pleased to get away, I'm sorry, I was selfish, I was so glad to get away, relieved because it was terrible hearing the buzz bombs overhead in London and the ordinary bombs, and hearing everybody getting killed, just had to get away. My sister went on munitions, and she told me she got a lot of money, all I got was one pound one shilling a week. That was bad money but we did it for the war effort.

Can you remember the moment when you heard that the war was over?

No. No, soldiers, oh soldiers would come in and they'd say it, you know, and you just took no notice of them. They used to say a lot of things you took no notice of.

What about the war starting?

Oh they used to tell us about the prisoners they'd taken, they'd come over in aeroplanes, at Cookham I was, near Aldershot, Cookham barracks, and there was, oh a load of, where all the army slept, you know, billets. We had all the police around, stop anything going on, and they used to go out and get the prisoners and that sort of thing.

Did you meet any of them?

No, never. What, the MPs?

No the prisoners.

No, never even saw them. No, they were put in the guardhouse straight away weren't they. And then they had the court martials and that sort of thing I suppose. They were the people that were court martialled, partly, you know. But we never saw anything, all we know is we had to get out the NAAFI quick and let them have a part of their NAAFI. But we spent our spare time in the afternoons washing your hair, writing home, you didn't get very far.

Did you have any brothers?

Yes, had two brothers. One was the munitions I think Percy was, I can't remember where he was but he was married, see that's why we sort of lost track of him, they had their families and we were different. My mum and us two, three girls were left together.

Your brothers didn't join up, they weren't in the army?

No, because they couldn't join up, they were A4 or something, I don't know, you're not A1, that's what I know. If you're A1 you can go to war, if not, say there's something wrong with you, don't know what it was, don't know to this day, they couldn't get in. Like Charlotte's dad wasn't it, he must have been the same, couldn't get in. Anything you want to ask me?

D'you feel that what you were doing was important?

Oh of course, of course. I would have took again if it was allowed, you know. But it wasn't allowed that sort of thing. I was going to be a soldier, that's what I went away for, I thought. Instead of that, scrub the world.

So you would have fought.

Oh yes. But I wouldn't go abroad though. We were asked if we would go abroad, I said no, I didn't want to leave my mum that much, you know.

Did you have a sense of, you were fighting for something important?

We was important, cos these were all our soldiers. Although they were Canadians, they were going out fighting for us and coming back wounded and hospitalised and then back to our camp for a bit of a rest, then out again they go.

Did you lose any friends, any close friends?

Don't know, you're not allowed to ask questions of any soldier. I have though, I've said to the soldiers, oh you going, well where you going, and my manager says to me, he said you don't ask questions. I've told you before you must not ask questions, cos there's ears around. You could have some of them, the prisoners or somebody could come disguised who could speak good English, or that, and come in you know. And we weren't allowed to ask questions, but me being young I'd say well where're you going. And I said that quite a few times, but some were shipped back to Canada cos they'd been wounded you know, and some went out to fight again, but it was Johnny in the canteen up till say nine, ten o'clock it was open till but we didn't serve till then, and there was music going all the time, and everybody was sitting on all the tables all round, and it was really enjoyable and they were all enjoying theirselves. They really enjoyed their life while they were there. And I certainly did.

Bit of a relief not to be on the ...

Oh of course, not fighting.

They talk to you much about that?

They weren't allowed to. They mustn't tell you where they'd been, where they're going, but I got a few bits out of some of them, you know, not a lot. And I knew they'd just been wounded, that sort of thing. No we just served them and were happy to do it.

Did you make friends that you'd kept after the war?

No, I believed in, you're like a ship, you pass through each other in the night, you know, it's too far. I didn't stay friends with anybody and they didn't either. And there was a couple of Londoners there, from Walthamstow, Mount Pleasant, Walthamstow, and also from the Old Kent Road there was a couple, of women you know, but no, didn't believe it because we didn't know what camp we was going to go in say the next week, and we were borrowed in different camps to go and serve. If they were short of somebody you go on relief. Went to Montreal barracks, the Quebec and all the different things you know, all different barracks.

So when the war came to an end, what happened to you then?

Can't remember really. We just got on with our work, we still had to serve soldiers. Cos they were still there, oh a year or two after. See they all had to go back and I suppose they had to have the ships to take them over cos there were still land mines around wasn't there, not land mines, in the sea and that, blowing them up, that sort of thing.

So you carried on for a while.

Well of course. Right till they went, practically every soldier off the camp. The ones that were there, were just come in for a week or two and I didn't know them at all you know. But we still served them and then, I'd say I'm going now and that was it.

Where did you go then?

Home. Home James. Went back to the reserve position, I become a supervisor of about seventy women, got fed up with that, you couldn't rest. Once you'd been to war you just, I understand when the men couldn't rest, I couldn't rest, I didn't know what I was going to do, so I stayed in this, as a supervisor for about two months, and all the time I was saying let me out, you know, I don't want to stay, I didn't want to do it. And I was going to go up the west end and serve up there, I thought that'd be better, serve up the west end. No I didn't do it, but then after I started going to all different factories, doing different jobs like ladies tailoring or gents tailoring, wherever the job come you're on the move all the time, and that's what I was doing.

Can you remember what it was like in the east end, all being bombed out?

I never went up there. I never went there. My Olive and Albert, they used to go round looking at all the places that were down, but I just never did it. I was at Walthamstow way in the shelter with Jack's family most of the time. We were always in the shelter, and they were country people from Cambridge but grand people you know, that's the reason I stayed with him cos I liked his family. Soon left him when I got away don't worry. Yes it was great. Enough?

Yes it was great. The war.

Well take it off if you want can't you. It was after the war, I think I'd come back on a weekend's leave and I had a bath and the lights were on indoors and we were blocked, blacked out, special blackout, black curtains, everything black, and you could hear the ARPs shouting out, turn that light off, turn that light off, you know, and we didn't know whether it was us or somebody else. So in the meantime, I was having a bath, no air, all blocked in, and my mum said, leave the door open, we'll know you're all right. So anyway when they come in --- my mum I was having a fit, I was unconscious sort of thing, and the ARP people come upstairs, took me out in a blanket on the balcony, brought me round and ...

What happened, why were you unconscious?

I'd been gassed I suppose. Because there was no air coming in. It's a thing like I've got out there, you've got your water heating, and you must have air, and we couldn't have had any, cos you know I've never been in any kind of a fit before, and I was in this fit and they come and got me out. That's all I can tell you on that one, but I suppose I nearly died because everything that happens to a person when they die happened to me.

What d'you mean?

It's not very nice. It's when a person dies, their body relaxes and they, d'you know what I mean, I can't explain exactly --- but it's on the water, and so that means you're dying then, that is the end of it. But I come round, I was only young wasn't I, they brought me round. And a chap had been killed a couple of blocks away, the same sort of thing, all blocked out you know, and he did die. That's nearly twice isn't it I nearly died, in the bombing and in the bath. That's the end of that.