My entry into the war and somenursing tales

having increased my age by a year I started nursing june1st1939. It was a hospital for people who were suffer ring from terminal illness. I was at church the morning war was declared ...we were told that the war had been ca
Declared and almost at once the sirens went off the vicar told us to go home or to the shelter. I went back to the hospital and was soon told to start putting brown sticky tape on the windows in case of any bombing.
I started crying to go home to my mother but v very soon told to act my age. except for the increase of service men nothing altered. In February I changed hospitals and started my training at a hospital in North London
It was a very hot summer there did not seem to be a care in the world...then the blitz started and all was let loose. The hospital had patients from two larger London hospitals and we were very busy after a week the hospital had been hit by several fire bombs and one high explosive bomb. The nurses were sent to the shelters to sleep, as it was safer...
This was not liked and although we should have stayed in went off to a near by pub The Sussex Arms as they had dances there every night and it was also air raid station and therefore had the orange light warning them of enemy aircraft coming into that area. This enabled us nurses to return to the hospital and be ready to go on duty if needed and it often was. The local airmen did not like this and would ask us if we were nurses who we generally denied only to have admit it if the call came it was a completely different life then no streetlights buses few and far between and we had to be careful if you were shinning a torch. When in the west end of London we used to tell amazing lies to, as we thought impress the other sex...
It was quite usual to go to a dance with one boy make a date with another and then finally come home with yet another. Never was there any shortage of the opposite sex they embroidered what they did and we did likewise. Yet we all fought hard and played hard. I finished my training and was married to an air force sergeant. My clothes were mostly hand made from other old dresses or were sec0ond hand. You only had so many clothing coupons and certainly not enough for many new utems. I managed to get a parachute which I undid and then made up for my nightdress and underwear. Black out material was also coupon free and this I used to make a very pretty (I thought) dressing gown all embroidered. For my wedding we saved food coupons to make for the wedding day food. The wedding cake was just fruit with a carboard cover to make it like a real wedding cake.
I went to Edinburgh for my honeymoon and then lived in Scotland for a year till my husband was prompted and we then lived in rooms in Yorkshire till nearly the end of the war

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