Memories of an ATS Gun Site

I joined the ATS in 1941 and trained at Northampton for a month, then went to Aborfield where I teamed up with more ATS girls. We had to do some tests on machines, which we were later told were a predictor, height finder and a TI plane spotter. The latter was to become my job. In other words, we were forming 535 M.H.A.A Battery RA.
We were sent to Bude to a firing camp for a month and then to a gun site in Woodford, Essex. Here, we became operational and were kept busy day and night.
After a year at that site, we were moved to Barkingside again in Essex, just in time for the bombs to fall on London. It was a terrible sight to see the flames from the fires and the massive devastation that befell the city during the blitz.
There were some happier times. When we did get some time off, we would go to London to the Stage Door Canteen or dancing to bands such as Ambrose, Billy Cotton and Glen Miller. The Last time I heard Glen Miller on the radio from the Nutfield Centre was just before he vanished. We would also go to to the theatre and saw Ben Lyon, Bebe Daniels and Vic Oliver in a show called Gangway.
On our return to camp, we would sometimes use the underground, I had never seen so many people in one place as the civilians were using the stations as shelters from the bombing. What struck me most, was the fact that they appeared to accept the bombing as part of their lives and just got on with it.
In 1944, the doodle bugs started coming over and one of our sites at Dollies Hill received a direct hit. At the same time the Flying Fortresses were carrying out night raids over Germany. Standing in the Command Post, I would watch them coming home, some undamaged, others shot up and some with engines barely hanging on.
Then the war came to an end and the gun sites stood down. At this time I was playing netball for the Army and we played the Navy and the Air Force and won both games. Finally I ended up at Donnington in the ordnance factory while waiting to be demobbed.

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