In the summer of 1939 I joined a cycling club at the suggestion of our insurance man. One day Bill Knight – another member – rode home with me after a meeting. He asked if I’d go riding with him the following Sunday and that is how our courtship began.
It was soon after this that Hitler marched into Poland. On Sunday 3rd September we did not go for our usual run on the bikes. We had been told to listen for an important announcement on the wireless. At 11 o’clock Bill called for me and we went to his house and there heard war declared.
Things soon settled into a pattern. In 1936 I had started work at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Woolwich Arsenal. I made up the men’s wages each week ,working from 8am to 8pm except Friday when we finished at 5pm. Saturday was half day, 9 – 12.30.
Bill and I continued our bike rides into the country. One Sunday we were sitting in a field eating our sandwiches when we heard the sounds of a ‘dog fight’ as we called the aerial attack of our planes on German planes. We dragged our bikes among some trees that grew alongside the field and sat with our heads down. We both wore glasses and we didn’t want the sun to shine on the lens. We had seen pictures of the German planes strafing the refugees who fled across Europe. We peeped a bit and saw a German plane swoop low over the field at the end of his dive to escape our planes. He was so close, we could see the pilot. When the all clear went and we got on our bikes and continued our ride.
On the Home Front, the war was quiet until the Battle of Britain when the Germans bombed us nightly. At the Royal Ordnance Factory, we had to be in at 8am as usual and having such a long journey (one hour by tram) caused problems. Sometimes the trams could not run the whole way because of craters in the road. When this happened, we thumbed down any likely vehicle to get a lift. I once travelled in an army staff car with officers inside.
I soon had responsibility for one or two out stations’ pay. Out stations were depots or firms doing essential war work. One of these out stations had a longstanding problem. A man complained that he had not received enough pay. I couldn’t find the problem so in the end I was sent to the out station for a week to make up the wages on the spot. I finally sorted it out. There were two brothers. Let’s call them Bill and Fred. Bill had worked a straight week, Fred had worked overtime. The cards had been made up properly, but when the wages were handed out, Fred was off sick and Bill had collected both wage packets. This was against regulations but as they were brothers, the depot had allowed it. Bill had kept Fred’s pay packet and given him his own! I went to the major and told him what I thought of such a breech of regulations and their incompetence in not seeing what had happened. Other people were afraid of the major, but not me!
It was gone 9pm by the time I reached home. The warning had often gone off by then and I walked along the deserted road to the drone of planes, search lights crossing in the sky and the crunch of distant guns as the ack ack guns tried to shoot enemy planes down. I ate my meal then joined the family in the street shelter. These were not pleasant places to sleep in. They were built of brick and concrete with sacking over the doorways and bunks along one side. We gave the bunks to the elderly, the rest of us slept rolled in our blankets on the floor. Toilets were a bucket at each end, behind sacking. These were not unhappy times though. We laughed and joked - no Germans were going to beat us.
One night the bombing was very fierce. I arrived at work one day to the news that the night shift had been blown to bits and couldn’t be recognised. Work cards were destroyed so no-one knew who was in and who wasn’t.
Another time, an unexploded bomb went through our building at an angle. The bomb was lodged in the basement right underneath us. We were moved to a building with no glass in the windows and wide open to the wind. We set to, working at trestle tables, but the wind kept blowing papers onto the floor. After a while, the boss said that anyone who wanted to could go home. No-one went. It was nearly dinnertime when the boss called out that the bomb was now safe.
After Bill and I were married, I found a job with the local Council in the Borough Treasurer’s department. I now worked 9 – 5, just a few minutes’ walk from home. It was not long before I was moved to the wages department. I would go out to the Demolition Rescue Squads who were stationed in school buildings and take their pay to them. I was allocated a driver who carried the large iron boxes for me and drove me from depot to depot.
We were told not to talk about where we worked or what we did. An enemy agent could use the most apparently innocent information to discover useful information. When asked, I just said that I was a civil servant.
The only break we had was one hour for lunch. No tea breaks, but the boss did turn a blind eye to the mid morning procession of people walking down the corridor with what was obviously a teapot in an envelope pretending to carry papers on legitimate business! The cup of tea was hidden in a half open drawer so that we could hide it quickly if the Executive Officer came round.
These were difficult but not unhappy times. We laughed and joked and when the planes were overhead, we kept going with Churchillian bravado. “We will fight them on the beaches,” he’d said and we felt quite capable of doing just that. No Germans were going to beat us.
It was soon after this that Hitler marched into Poland. On Sunday 3rd September we did not go for our usual run on the bikes. We had been told to listen for an important announcement on the wireless. At 11 o’clock Bill called for me and we went to his house and there heard war declared.
Things soon settled into a pattern. In 1936 I had started work at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Woolwich Arsenal. I made up the men’s wages each week ,working from 8am to 8pm except Friday when we finished at 5pm. Saturday was half day, 9 – 12.30.
Bill and I continued our bike rides into the country. One Sunday we were sitting in a field eating our sandwiches when we heard the sounds of a ‘dog fight’ as we called the aerial attack of our planes on German planes. We dragged our bikes among some trees that grew alongside the field and sat with our heads down. We both wore glasses and we didn’t want the sun to shine on the lens. We had seen pictures of the German planes strafing the refugees who fled across Europe. We peeped a bit and saw a German plane swoop low over the field at the end of his dive to escape our planes. He was so close, we could see the pilot. When the all clear went and we got on our bikes and continued our ride.
On the Home Front, the war was quiet until the Battle of Britain when the Germans bombed us nightly. At the Royal Ordnance Factory, we had to be in at 8am as usual and having such a long journey (one hour by tram) caused problems. Sometimes the trams could not run the whole way because of craters in the road. When this happened, we thumbed down any likely vehicle to get a lift. I once travelled in an army staff car with officers inside.
I soon had responsibility for one or two out stations’ pay. Out stations were depots or firms doing essential war work. One of these out stations had a longstanding problem. A man complained that he had not received enough pay. I couldn’t find the problem so in the end I was sent to the out station for a week to make up the wages on the spot. I finally sorted it out. There were two brothers. Let’s call them Bill and Fred. Bill had worked a straight week, Fred had worked overtime. The cards had been made up properly, but when the wages were handed out, Fred was off sick and Bill had collected both wage packets. This was against regulations but as they were brothers, the depot had allowed it. Bill had kept Fred’s pay packet and given him his own! I went to the major and told him what I thought of such a breech of regulations and their incompetence in not seeing what had happened. Other people were afraid of the major, but not me!
It was gone 9pm by the time I reached home. The warning had often gone off by then and I walked along the deserted road to the drone of planes, search lights crossing in the sky and the crunch of distant guns as the ack ack guns tried to shoot enemy planes down. I ate my meal then joined the family in the street shelter. These were not pleasant places to sleep in. They were built of brick and concrete with sacking over the doorways and bunks along one side. We gave the bunks to the elderly, the rest of us slept rolled in our blankets on the floor. Toilets were a bucket at each end, behind sacking. These were not unhappy times though. We laughed and joked - no Germans were going to beat us.
One night the bombing was very fierce. I arrived at work one day to the news that the night shift had been blown to bits and couldn’t be recognised. Work cards were destroyed so no-one knew who was in and who wasn’t.
Another time, an unexploded bomb went through our building at an angle. The bomb was lodged in the basement right underneath us. We were moved to a building with no glass in the windows and wide open to the wind. We set to, working at trestle tables, but the wind kept blowing papers onto the floor. After a while, the boss said that anyone who wanted to could go home. No-one went. It was nearly dinnertime when the boss called out that the bomb was now safe.
After Bill and I were married, I found a job with the local Council in the Borough Treasurer’s department. I now worked 9 – 5, just a few minutes’ walk from home. It was not long before I was moved to the wages department. I would go out to the Demolition Rescue Squads who were stationed in school buildings and take their pay to them. I was allocated a driver who carried the large iron boxes for me and drove me from depot to depot.
We were told not to talk about where we worked or what we did. An enemy agent could use the most apparently innocent information to discover useful information. When asked, I just said that I was a civil servant.
The only break we had was one hour for lunch. No tea breaks, but the boss did turn a blind eye to the mid morning procession of people walking down the corridor with what was obviously a teapot in an envelope pretending to carry papers on legitimate business! The cup of tea was hidden in a half open drawer so that we could hide it quickly if the Executive Officer came round.
These were difficult but not unhappy times. We laughed and joked and when the planes were overhead, we kept going with Churchillian bravado. “We will fight them on the beaches,” he’d said and we felt quite capable of doing just that. No Germans were going to beat us.