How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (27 page)

Working with the Land Army, it was one of my jobs to wash the cows’ udders, prior to the attachment of the automatic milkers. One of the other girls was an inveterate
telltale, although nobody took much notice of her. I’d just finished my washing one day when the cowman came in.

‘She’s missed that one!’ the triumphant telltale exclaimed.

‘She’d have a job with that one,’ the cowman replied, ‘it’s a young bull!’

Miss P. Manser, Maidstone

About 1942, our Scottish GCO decided he would organize a Christmas party. Situated, as we were, at the then North-Western Polytechnic in Kentish Town, we had the correct
facilities. It was decided that everyone should try to dress up a bit and the girls all managed some sort of party dress. Inevitably there were Scottish reels and the WVC lady, small but with an
ample bust, had on a tight evening skirt and low-necked blouse. I can still see the fascinated eyes of the men, happily anticipating the worst. I hasten to say this never happened, but it looked a
near thing.

Leila Mackinlay, London

I was working in the NAAFI and was happy at the barracks I’d first been posted to, but in wartime nobody was a fixture so, when the need arose for my services elsewhere, I
had my marching orders. My next posting was at a canteen by a gun site perched on farmland overlooking the town and docks, and here I was nightly tumbled out of bed to the tune of a naval gun
booming its anger at German aircraft. This gun shone beautifully when viewed by daylight. But, when darkness fell, it became an angry dragon spitting fire.

The stove on which I had to cook was an antiquated ‘iron maiden’ which was heated by coal. This monster required a lot of care and attention if it was to serve me well. I had already
met one like it. The gunners on KP duties had no idea how to treat this thing. They forgot this baking machine had vents and holes in various places and that, unless these were kept free of soot,
my rock cakes would turn out like pancakes . . .

After a few days of using a temperamental oven, I decided to discontinue the services of the KP brigade and clean the stove myself. When I had complained about the stove, the boys always had
some excuse. The wind was blowing from the wrong direction, or it was poor-quality coal. I found the flues full of soot. Anyone with such a dirty bottom had a right to misbehave. But after a
vigorous brushing from me the oven carried out its work once more.

At the barracks it had not been too noisy, but on the gun site the sound of voices shouting ‘Who goes there?’ and the gun booming kept us awake at night. As I lay awake I began to
worry about the oven and whether it would let us down the next day. One particularly nervous girl predicted we would get murdered in our beds and, by the end of a trying day, I predicted that I
should be the one to murder this complaining female!

Gwyneth Wright, London

It wasn’t a happy gun site. The faces I saw over the canteen counter were anything but jovial; I had a feeling they were depressed because they hadn’t bagged a Jerry
plane. And, in their present mood, might shoot at one of our own aircraft by mistake.

Desperate to get to sun-drenched shores, I filled in an application form. I had little time to myself so had to do this while running between the stove and the table, and I hoped that I had not
left any greasy fingermarks on the form. I posted it myself, not trusting anyone else enough to allow them to ruin my chances of a posting to a faraway place. In the meantime, I found myself
transferred to a new canteen a few miles away. Although the voice of the guns could still be heard, they could not be felt and this new canteen was a much more pleasant environment. I began to
forget about the possibility of endless blue skies and to enjoy the rain and fog of the British climate.

Eventually I received my reply. I had to go to Manchester for another medical and, since I would be under the protection of the army while posted overseas, I would need a few weeks of
training.

I arrived in Manchester just as the heavens opened and landed at the YWCA looking like a refugee with water dripping from all directions. My shoes squelched as I walked to the reception desk.
Here I spent the night. By morning the warm atmosphere of the building had partially dried my coat, but my shoes still had that musical tone about them.

My stomach churned at the idea of the medical. I do not like doing the stripping act before strangers and I knew before the day was over many MOs’ beady eyes would find fault with my
chubby torso. I was prodded and poked in many delicate areas. Questioned about my grandparents and parents.

Many more personal questions were asked about me and I wondered if I was to enter the Intelligence Corps, rather than be a baker of buns! The amount of blood taken from me could have caused
anaemia, and the urine I had been expected to produce left me feeling empty. The MO who took my blood pressure nearly had me joining the barrage balloons with his pumping. By the end of the day,
any modesty I had had been taken away and I felt like a ‘fallen woman’.

A large cup of tea soon had my kidneys in working order and my blood pumping once more. I left Manchester to its rain and made my way back to the canteen to wait for the letter that would beckon
me towards the training course.

It took the army a few weeks to decide if the enemy was ready to face me and my rock buns, but a letter eventually came inviting me to spend twenty-eight days at a barracks in Wigston near
Leicester.

I arrived there with a few more rookies and here a new era in my life began. The day at the quartermaster’s stores was a great laugh. I joined the line of girls at the stores and saw a few
soldiers standing behind the counter. And behind those soldiers were shelves holding various pieces of ladies’ underwear. As I came towards the counter, a large kitbag was thrown in my
direction and into this I placed ‘three of everything’ which was thrown over the counter at me. Each soldier behind the counter must have had a perverted sense of humour because, with
one look at each girl, they passed those garments without enquiring the size, and when I dared question the size of one garment coming my way I was told, brusquely: ‘You can swap with
someone!’

Would I find a Tessie O’Shea to fit the drawers I held in my hand? I managed to get to the end of the line without starting a civil war, whereupon a topcoat was thrown over my head to stop
me arguing with the supply corporal, and a cap planted in a drunken manner over that!

As I moved my load I knew there was one thing they had forgotten to issue – a porter to carry this lot to the barrack room.

I struggled back to my room and, with some relief, dropped the bag of tricks upon my bed. As I unpacked, I discovered various sizes of underwear from one that would have fitted Twiggy. So a
swapping session began, with screams of delight coming from the girls who managed to find something to fit.

The khaki shade of ‘passion killers’ would have turned off even the most sex-starved male, but maybe the army had a point there! When I tried to exchange a pair of these khaki
bloomers for a smaller size, I was told that they would soon shrink in the wash. I never found out if that were true. I used them as shoe shiners and very good at it they were too.

Gwyneth Wright, London

Foundation garments were made like chastity belts, and these were placed in the bottom of my kitbag for the duration, along with bras that pulled down rather than uplifted the
bust, and a few more khaki ‘fashions’ saw the light only on inspection day.

The shoes issued almost crippled me for life when I introduced them to my feet. We had been advised to have a size larger than we would normally wear, but I found I had to shuffle my feet to
keep them on during marches. I demanded a size smaller, only to find that my feet were soft and the new shoes hard. I squeezed and prodded the leather of those clodhoppers to soften them, but only
after several blisters did those shoes and my poor feet become good friends.

I feel sure the girls who, like me, had been attracted by a spirit of adventure, regretted making their application after a few days at the barracks. Each morning in PT kit, looking like a bunch
of schoolgirls, we pranced around the parade ground for exercises that the male sergeant insisted was ‘making the blood circulate’.