Working Through War

Dolly 'n' Peg

It was filling life jackets with kapoc that had to be weighed accurately as the Board of Trade sent an...

The Runaway Train

In 1944 my driver and I were working a train of petrol to Southampton Docks: 46 wagons of petrol in...

An Interesting Day

Apparently there were a number of people standing on the bridge or crossing it on foot when they saw an...

'They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait': The Royal Observatory Corps

Keeping an eye on the sky The ROC posts were dotted around the countryside. The red spitfire award Aircraft...

Halt! Who Goes There? Friend or Foe?

Emil Eisele was also a soldier — a German prisoner of war who was billeted at Pennylands Camp in...

Photographs from a NAAFI girl

Mostly we were stationed at Victora and we'd serve cakes and tea for the men coming home on leave....

My First Acquaintance with a Yank

In 1943 I was 14 and working as a Volunteer in the YMCA Forces Canteen in the Edinburgh Waverley...

Preparations for D-Day: Civilian Workers with the REME

Shortly after, all the civilian workers were no longer needed at the REME so my friend and I were sent back...

War work in Ellesmere, Shropshire by Gwen Comer

I worked at an army camp, the Elson Depot, just outside Ellesmere making camouflage nets. One Christmas we...

Ship Repairs in Hull

During the war I worked as an apprentice at Brigham & Cowans Ship Repairs in Hull, East Yorkshire. One...

Coventry's Cup of Tea

When my dad entered the city with colleagues, and began talking to its dazed inhabitants, one topic came...

Bus Conductress

She was the first female conductress to travel from Birmingham City Centre to Wednesbury . When the raids...

Mam In Munitions

The chemicals caused the skin to go orangy -yellow so all hair was to be tucked in and all exposed skin was...

Buses: In Bristol

My Gran was a clippie for the Bristol Omnibus Company she had many stories about narrow escapes during the...

City Boys on the Farm

While I was an evacuee, one morning Mrs Campbell sent my cousin Tommy and I to the next farm with a sort...

Camouflage on Airfields

We had government contracts to paint buildings on airfields in camouflage patterns. Not only the buildings...

Heather Simpson's Wartime Story

I was determined to do this as I had a date with Derrick to go to the pictures in the evening -...

Time and Tide, Lehamel

These could be glimpsed through the openings of the paddle boxes as they splashed through the water rising...

Evacuee to Front Line Soldier,My Teenage Years

My orders were to pick up the platoon Officer and Sgt, with their wireless operator, and take them out,...

Remembering the 40s - before and during the war

Land-mine descends on parachute, settles on a hedge in the village, fails to explode, Royal Navy Bomb...

Woolwich in the War

One of the German planes landed in the back garden between Ann Street and Robert Street, in lower Woolwich,...

My Wartime Anecdotes (1939 – 1945)

Meanwhile, my sister Doris, a voluntary St. John's nurse, had joined the Ambulance Brigade, and in the...

Teenagers in War

They came over the white cliffs of Southern England in formation, to drop their bombs on London; but soon...

A Teenage Boy's memories

Jo Curtis, the butcher, also liked to come shooting. He was a rather fat man (like many butchers) and when we went out together my task was to get him into a suitable place...

Memories of a Wartime Teenager in London

If Dad and I had been in a different type of work we could have 'evacuated' ourselves, Mum and the...

Memoirs of Working at the ROF Glascoed

The Factory had about 6 sections and each had a canteen but by this time they were brick buildings fully...