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This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of Barbara Campbell.

Barbara Campbell

My family had been rather tied up with the Navy so as soon as I was seventeen and a half I went along and put my name down and I said that I would be a mobile Wren because my sister was also a Wren and I wanted to get away from home. You know, I though there was another world out there. And so I waited until they sent my appointment and it was to Lee-on-Solent which was just five miles from where I lived. I was there for two years I think. I was in the Signals Office and I got to Leading Wren. And then I got fed up with that. I thought: Really I must get away and so I was invited to take a commission. So I said I would. Off I went. I thought: Gosh! All the world is open for me. And they sent me to Fareham which was five miles away from home still! So I sat there for a while and then I thought: I must, I’m going to get out of this county. So I said I would go overseas. I got sent to Colombo and the war ended while I was in the Mediterranean on the way out there. I was out there for a year and I was one of the last two cypher officers to come home. I came home on HMS Formidable and on the way they were casting the Fleet Air Arm aircraft over the stern of the ship into the sea. They didn’t need them any more so they were just being thrown away. Terrible. And then I arrived home and that was my war.

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