Hampshire

Recollections of a WREN on D-Day

I recorded in my diary that the Officer in Charge came to the switchboard room at 10pm and said...

Teenage Life in Pompey

Dorothy was 14 years old and living as a schoolgirl in Portsmouth when war broke out. When Dorothy was...

D Day at Hardway

She joined Dyer's Dairy as a milk girl, starting at 7 in the morning and pushing a milk cart around the...

Plotting with the WRNS

After a couple of weeks at a Drafting Depot in Southsea I ended up in Weymouth as a Plotter. A week before...

'Windows' foil.

I was a radar operator, and I had to maintain the radar transmitter, clean the power unit and make sure it...

The Gosport Ferry 1942.

So once we were settled on board for the quick trip across Portsmouth harbour, I said "Will Daddy be...

Shaking hands with Lady Naysmith

Lady Mountbatten inspected one of the parades and the Commander-in-Chief's wife, Lady Naysmith shook...

Reminiscences of a Wren

I actually wanted to be a Land Army Girl, but my mother didn't want that as my family were all Naval....

Caring for Ensor Entertainers

When I was 18 my sister and I went into the NAAFI but we were in what was called ‘service’ at...

Memories of Priddy's Hard

Mrs Gladys M. Harget I lived in Gosport, Hants, during the Second World War and went to work at the Royal...

Day Trip to Bournemouth

He was a high ranking French Army officer; standing rigidly to attention, staring out to sea and looking...

D-DAY or LAST DAY?

She was a WREN stationed in Portsmouth between 1943 and 1946. They were amazed to see hundreds of boats,all...

A Lucky Birthday

I obtained 48 hours leave and went home to Fairoak, to my parents’ home, for my birthday... That...

A poem 6th June, 1944

From a picnic vantage on Southbourne cliffs I saw them dotted like basking black beetles, dozens spaced out...

Taken short in Southsea

When I was in the ATS I was put in a billet in Southsea and buzzbombs were coming over. This particular...

Net Curtains

My Father always told the story of how Major David Strangeways was rescued with his uint from Dunkirk by a...

Net Curtains

My Father always told the story of how Major David Strangeways was rescued with his unit from Dunkirk by a...

The one that got away

I came to Winchester after convelescence and a medical board in which a kind lady doctor said 'I think...

Home Guard

Southampton suffered badly from enemy bombing and Len recalls seeing the first barrage balloons flying over...

VE Day

On VE Day the Queen Mary was in the docks in Southampton and the celebrations including the sirens being...

Memories of a Canadian nurse

I graduated as a registered nurse in Canada in 1944 and went with several of my nursing friends to Christie...

My Family and The second world war

At the time of my birth we all lived in Southampton... My Father worked for "Vickers Armstrong...

Life in the WRENS

On life in the WRENS Irene says — “I loved it, I lived for going ashore and dancing”......

Practice Makes Perfect

We think it was probably a practice for the Normandy Landings....

American Military Hospital at Kingston Lacy

My father worked on the boilers at the 106 US Hospital in the Park at Kingston Lacy - '8 hours on and...

wartime nursing

Just before the war I had finished 2 years of chiropody training in Manchester, and had returned to my...