The Girls Who Went to War: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces. Duncan Barrett

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СКАЧАТЬ she went to visit she was shocked by the change in her. Daisy’s entire body had gone a deep shade of orange, and now even the whites of her eyes were coloured with it. ‘We reckon it’s the TNT from the factory,’ her mother told Margery, wringing her apron at Daisy’s bedside.

      Over the coming weeks Daisy slowly clawed her way back to health, but her illness only made Margery more terrified than ever at the thought of working in a factory. Yet to her dismay there was talk of young women being conscripted – not only into the armed forces but into munitions factories like the one in Gosport as well. In April 1941 the Registration for Employment Order was passed, requiring Margery, like all other young, single women, to register with the Ministry of Labour. Since she was now 20, she was in the catchment age for the impending call-up.

      Margery was frantic. Throughout her young life, joining the military could not have been further from her mind – yet if she didn’t volunteer now, the choice of whether to join the services or be put into a factory would be taken out of her hands. There was nothing for it: she would have to enlist.

      She was relieved to discover that she was not alone – another girl at the draper’s called Winnie was facing the same dilemma. But which force should they choose – Army, Navy or Air Force?

      ‘The WAAF uniform’s a nice colour,’ remarked one of their colleagues over lunch one day, pointing to a recruitment ad in the magazine she was reading. The illustration showed Air Force girls in smart blue uniforms, dancing with dashing pilots. Before long, Winnie and Margery had hatched a plan to get the bus to Portsmouth together that weekend and volunteer for the WAAF.

      At the recruiting office Margery’s brief interview seemed to go well, and a WAAF sergeant said they would be pleased to take her, thanks to her experience in accounts. ‘You’ll be hearing from us soon,’ she assured her.

      Sure enough, it wasn’t long before both Margery and Winnie awoke to find a brown envelope on their doormat. Inside was a letter ordering the girls to report to Portsmouth the next day at 7 a.m. From there, they would be taken to London for a medical exam.

      Now Margery was gripped by a new fear – what if she failed the medical? She remembered with a jolt a broken tooth that she had been meaning to get fixed. Could that be enough to keep her out of the WAAF? She wasn’t sure, but she had no intention of taking the risk. Something had to be done – and quickly.

      Before long, Margery was sat in front of the local dentist, begging him to remove the offending tooth. The man was a little put out at being asked to perform such a last-minute operation, but he yanked and pulled with his pliers until finally it was extracted.

      That night, as she tried to pack her tiny overnight bag while cradling her painful jaw, Margery received some unsettling news. Winnie’s aunt had died unexpectedly, and since she was already motherless and the only girl in the family, her father had decided that he needed her at home to run the house. Winnie wouldn’t be coming with her to London after all – instead Margery would be facing the Air Force alone.

      It was a little after 5 a.m. the following morning when Margery caught the bus to Portsmouth. She was wearing her best suit – a pale blue jacket with matching skirt and blouse, which she hoped would make a good impression on the WAAF. As the vehicle trundled along the sleepy country lanes, she wondered where she might ultimately end up. She had never been away from home before – or really, gone anywhere at all, other than a few trips to Dover and Deal to see her relatives. Yet in the Air Force she would have no say in where she was stationed, and she might be sent far, far away from the familiar world of North Wallington.

      On the train from Portsmouth to London, Margery sat with a small group of equally nervous-looking local girls, some a little older than herself and some younger. As they rushed towards the capital, a WAAF sergeant told the girls that if they passed the day’s medical exam they would be sent for three weeks’ basic training in Gloucester, but if they failed they would be going straight home again. Margery was wracked with nerves at the thought of flunking the medical, and more thankful than ever that she had got rid of her broken tooth.

      At the imposing Victory House in Piccadilly, Margery’s cohort was swept into a sea of new recruits being processed that day. The building was a hive of activity, with line after line of women queueing to see various doctors, each of whom specialised in a different part of the human anatomy. First Margery joined a queue of girls waiting to have their hearts and lungs tested – as they reached the front, they were asked to breathe in and out while a man with glasses listened intently for any rattles or murmurs. Margery was worried that her racing heart would let her down, but to her relief she passed and was moved on to the next line. There, she queued for more than an hour before her limbs were stretched and examined and her knees and elbows knocked with a little hammer to test her reflexes. Then there were the eye doctors, ear doctors, foot doctors – every kind of doctor imaginable – and all of them intent on weeding out substandard recruits. Yet to Margery’s continual surprise and relief, time after time she was passed as fit and healthy.

      Whenever she joined a new queue, Margery was sure that the doctor at the front would ask to inspect her teeth, but hour after hour went by and no one did. Finally, after a long and weary day with just a cup of tea and a sandwich to sustain them, she and the other girls from Portsmouth were all passed as fit and told they would be boarding the train to Gloucester.

      Margery was overwhelmed with relief that she had passed her medical. But on her way from Victory House to Paddington Station, suddenly a new thought dawned on her – she had undergone the painful dental work for nothing.

      It was getting on for midnight by the time the girls finally arrived at No. 2 WAAF Depot at Innsworth, near Gloucester, the central training facility for new recruits. Having opened only a few months before, the base now managed an intake of almost 3,000 girls a week, and ran like a well-oiled machine.

      After the hours of queueing for medical examinations, followed by a lengthy journey, the girls were beginning to feel desperate for a hot dinner and a warm bed, but first there was more processing to be done. They were required to submit to the indignities of the FFI inspection and then to gather their kit from the stores, before making up the beds in their dormitory huts, alternately top to toe to limit the chances of infection. By the time they were finally taken to the mess, Margery was ravenous, but to her disappointment the long-awaited dinner consisted of just a spoonful of watery minced beef and lumpy mashed potato.

      As the girls were finishing up their food, one of the kitchen hands came round with a large bucket and Margery saw that she was ladling something from it into their enamel mugs. ‘What’s in there?’ she asked her neighbour.

      ‘Tea,’ the other girl replied with a smile.

      Margery was horrified. After all the unfamiliar, exhausting experiences of the day, the thought of having what should have been a reassuring, homely cuppa doled out from a bucket somehow felt like the last straw.

      Finally, the tired recruits were led back to their wooden huts for the night, and collapsed gratefully onto their hard iron beds. But now Margery, like many of the other girls, found that the sleep she had longed for was eluding her. The three square ‘biscuits’ that she had been given for a mattress had a tendency to separate every time she rolled over, and the hard bolster on which her head rested creaked under even the slightest movement. It was a miserable end to a difficult day, and Margery felt more wretched than ever. She thought back to that glossy picture she had seen in her colleague’s magazine, which now seemed very far from the reality of life in the WAAF. She had volunteered out of fear, without really thinking about what she was letting herself in for. Now she began to wonder: What on earth had she done?

      That night, Margery wasn’t the only one whose mind was falling prey to such dark thoughts. After the constant bustle of СКАЧАТЬ