Day the Fighting Stopped

I was a Wren based at Felixstow Naval Base as a cook. It wasn't anything very exciting, you just worked away at a job. Most of us joined because it was the job to be done, not with enormous patriotism. We joined because we didn't want to be drafted into anything else. I had trained in catering, so that's what I did.

It wasn't in the most glamorous of jobs. We did shift work, but we didn;t have to work at night. Other people got into more glamorous jobs - boat crews, RAF MT drivers and maintenance of aircraft, which must have been very interesting.

The news came over on the public address and we joined some people and started partying. I don't remember if we cooked a special meal for anybody, we just got on our bicycles and went back to our quarters after. But we finished our shift because people still had to be fed.

Obviously there was a great deal of jubliation and everybody phoned their families. My parents were in London, and I called them. Particularly because of the doodlebugs, it was good to know all that was over.

They did bring some of the German E-boats into Felixstowe and as Wrens we had a chance to go over them. they were mighty small and very smelly things. It was a little eerie going into them. Our thought was that they must have used a lot of perfume to cover up body smells. But that was what we thought as 20-year-olds. We were so young, as were the boys who were on these boats fighting. It's all a bit shattering.

We had been expecting VE Day. Everybody was delighted that it was over as far as Europe was concerned. The reason we weren't quite as euphoric as we would have been is that there was the feeling that there were still things to be tied up. There was the Japanese side of things to be dealt with, and nobody knew how long that would take. And many were in the same situation as I was. My fiance was away with the Navy. The bigger shock came on VJ day - at that time I was on draft to go to the Far East. I wasn't as street-wise as I am now: I didn't read the papers and we weren't up to date.

It was a combined effort. Everybody was working together, so nobody wants to be marked out as having done anything wonderful. I was one of hundreds doing small jobs that, taken all together, were important.

Audrey Chisholm (nee Crisfield), originally from London, moved to Glasgow when married. Now 82 years old.

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