ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

WAR MEMOIRS — JOYCE NEALE

Joyce Neale is my mother, now 79 years of age.

Like so many people of her generation, World War Two shaped their lives more than the rest of society can possibly appreciate. For those of my generation, my children’s and thereafter their children, our most defining experiences will be largely domestic and parochial. For people like my parents, theirs was participation in not only a conflict, but one which, whatever the outcome, would change the course of history.

While my mother clearly remembers, and to some extent cherishes, her wartime memories, my father has a different perspective. Like so many men of his age and era, he was posted overseas, and fought the war in Burma. His comparative silence, and to be truthful a degree of simmering resentment, is sufficient testimony to the very darkest side of war. For men like my father, he was robbed of what should have been the best and most formative years of his life (he was 18 when war broke out), and I suspect he saw and witnessed things that he really wished he could not remember.

By her own admission, my mother came from an unremarkable working class background, where both her parents worked tirelessly to make ends meet, and in an environment where, for her at least, there was next to no education. She was, by all accounts, a simple (but emphatically not stupid) girl caught up in a momentous time in history, and the life lessons she encountered shaped the rest of her life.

What follows, in three parts, is her own story, in her own words, completely untouched by anyone else’s influence, guidance and suggestion.

Alan Neale

Part 1 Follows

War Memoirs — Joyce Neale.

Part 1

In September 1939, war was declared with Germany. I was still at school, but leaving age in those days was fourteen, unless you were really clever, and had wealthy parents and could go to a private school, and then university, none of which applied to me. As the school I attended did not have an air raid shelter in the school grounds, it had to close, until such time as one could be built, which took about two and a half months, which was then approaching time for me to leave school. I went back to school for about two weeks, which was nearly the Christmas holidays, I said goodbye to my friends, and left.

My mother wanted me to train as a nurse, but that was not appealing to me, I thought that I was not clever enough to do that, silly me. I took the easy way out. My mother always did cleaning jobs in private houses to make ends meet , and quite often took me with her from the age of twelve , I was always given jobs to do , such as cleaning brass, silver, and polishing furniture , for which I received a few coppers . So I looked in local papers, to see if there were jobs in private houses I could do full time. After going for interviews with my mother to a few, the one I really liked was quite a young woman who had not been married long to a local butcher. She seemed to take a liking to me, and we agreed that I should start on the sixth of January 1940. My hours were from eight am until six thirty pm, for which my wages were ten shillings a week, (which in new money is fifty pence) and for that she certainly wanted her pound of flesh. I was able to cycle to work, as it was only about three miles away.

I had to wear a uniform, one for morning, and a different one in the afternoon, which I hated, and was quite often told off for not wearing it .My job consisted of cleaning, shopping, and when she found out I could cook as well, that was also part of my duties . When I had been there a few months her husband was called up for the army, the war was getting much more intense, with more air raids. While cycling home one night, we were allowed dim lights on cycles, and cars. The air raid warning had gone, I turned round to make sure my lights were on, as they were run by batteries, I swerved into the kerb, and skated along the pavement on my face, which was a terrible mess. A lady in a nearby house saw me do this, and took me in to bathe my face, and make me a cup of tea. In the meantime my parents were getting very worried, as I had not arrived home. My father got on his cycle and came to look for me, he went to my place of employment, but they said I had left a little while since.

He decided to go home again, as he thought he had missed me. By this time I was feeling a little better, and decided to walk home. When I arrived home they were just about to call the police, all the neighbours were outside with my parents, and when they saw me, they all thought I had been attacked, until I explained. The next day I went to see a Doctor, who prescribed a special cream, which was used to heal wounds of the armed forces, which made me feel quite special. I was ordered two days rest in bed. Of course when I returned to work, not much had been done. My parents became air raid wardens, their job consisted of directing people to air raid shelters, which was not always that easy, as some times they did not always want to go ; my father had been in the army in the First World War, 1914 till 1918, he was badly wounded, shrapnel in his legs, and was still suffering from this in 1940, but as they had to train men for the home guard ( ‘Dads Army’) they called on men like my father who had military training, and could use a gun. We started to have quite a few air raids, so we started to sleep down stairs on make shift beds, and always had a case packed with food, in case we were bombed out, and we would all take shelter under the stairs, including the dog, who was named Pip. He always seemed to know when we were about to have an air raid, and curl up in my fathers arm chair and would not get off. Sometimes we would hear the whistle of a bomb coming down, and we all would dive under the dining room table, which was quite a hefty and strong one. My father said it was a funny sight to see. One night a stick of bombs fell on the high street, and as I was cycling to work the next morning, I saw the home guard and air raid wardens digging people out, as most of the people lived over the shops. Quite a few local people died that night, and in nights to come, two of which were two little evacuee boys, who had come down from London, and whose parents thought they would be safer in Hoddesdon. When I had been back at work about eight weeks the lady’s husband came home on leave. While he was there I asked for a raise in my wages, to fifteen shillings a week which did not please them at all. I could hear them discussing this, I heard her say to him, I could work in a factory and earn a lot more, which were my thoughts. They agreed to the increase.

About three months later she told me she was pregnant, and I was very pleased for her, so the spare bedroom was prepared. It was quite a big house, five bedrooms, so there was plenty of work to do. We made ready for the baby, her brother and sister came to stay, as they lived in Richmond, which was getting a few bombs. Her baby was born in the early part of the year, a little girl, a little darling, so my work load increased. I quite often looked after her, which I did not mind at all, I think she looked on me as her mother, and when I had her out in the pram I think a lot of other people made this mistake. I stayed for about another six months. We were now into the Battle of Britain and those very brave men and boys that fought and lost their lives, we would stand outside and cheer, shout and wave our arms about, which was a silly thing to do, as lumps of metal and shrapnel were falling from these planes. We did not seem to notice, and when a plane was shot down, ours or the enemy, we would cry, as we knew someone had probably been badly injured or died, some trapped in their burning planes.

I stayed for about another two months, then had to tell her I was going to leave. She was quite upset about this, but I had made up my mind to go, I would have company as quite a few friends already worked in the same factory, some of which I still have today. The factory was quite important, as they were making brass shells and fuses, for the navy etc. My job was working in the tool stores, giving out tools to keep the big machines going, and also we had to sharpen tools that were wearing down, which of course was not my job , but more for a skilled person. I also had to learn a few skills of my own as I had never been involved with machine tools of any sort, one of which was a micrometer which can measure a human hair. The men were very good and spent a little time showing me. I soon picked it up, and enjoyed my time there; the machines were going twenty fours a day, so there was a night shift. They asked me to do some night shifts, but my father said I was too young, and would not allow it, but they did not make a fuss, as I think they agreed with him. I stayed working there for about two years, and I joined a local group which was for training young women who wanted to join the woman’s armed services. My mother had been in the First World War as a WAAC, which was a branch of the woman’s forces in the First war, and she even spent some time in France. As I mentioned before my father was in the army in the 1914- 1918 war and was badly injured with shrapnel wounds to chest and legs, in fact he believes a wallet in his pocket saved his life - I have seen it badly damaged and blood stained. He was still attending hospital and was even kept in after I was born, my mother travelled to Roehampton hospital with me as a baby in her arms to visit him. He never received a penny from the army for his war wounds; I think he did receive some money from the British Legion which of course still does a great job looking after ex service people today. So in January 1944 myself and my friend Sybil applied to join the woman’s branch of the air force the WAAF. As Sybil was a little younger than myself we had to wait until she was eighteen, which was about a month. We had a letter to tell us to report to London for our medical, neither of us had been to London on our own which was a little worrying, which in these days would seem strange. Sybil’s boy friend was home on leave from the army said he would come with us, as he had been there before. The medical was interesting to say the least, and we had a lot of laughs on the way home as we recounted to him what had happened.

On March the 14th, we received our calling up papers, and were told to report to Edmonton. We were in a group of about one hundred and fifty, and all boarded a train to god knows where. And so we were on our way. A long train journey later we arrived at our destination, Wilmslow in Cheshire a place we had never heard of, and seemed a very long way from home. One of the reasons it was such a very long journey was, if a troop train was passing through all other trains were diverted to a siding, until these trains had passed through on their way to France or Germany. So began our adventure. Our huts were very basic about forty beds all staggered heads and feet, we were issued that day with just our bedding, four blankets, two sheets, two very hard pillows and four biscuits, which were our mattress’s - square hard cushion, which every one called biscuits. We also were issued with one each of knife fork, and spoon, which if lost we had to pay for, which was difficult to say the least as we only had the money we had bought with us. Our meal that night was not very pleasant, the plates were thick with grease as the dish washer was not very efficient, not many of us got any sleep that night, Sybil and I wondered what we had done!

The next day was a round of medicals and injections, and being issued with our uniforms, which were mainly second hand even the shoes, we wondered who had these before us. One girl was given a jacket with a bullet hole in the back, which upset us all - it was changed after a week. We had two hats, one skirt, a great coat (which was very handy in the cold weather, as we would put on the bed as another blanket), underwear (two dark blue pairs of bloomers, which were called passion crushers), two vests, two grotty bras and two pairs of pyjamas. Also we were given one packet of sanitary towels, and told we would get one packet of those a month. An explanation was given for the bullet hole in the jacket - a lot of airdromes were attacked by German planes and bombs were dropped, and raked with machines guns. A lot of ground staff, and air crew were injured, including WAAFS, and a few were killed. Any air planes on the ground were either badly damaged or destroyed, so factories were working twenty four hours a day to replace these planes. It made us realize the importance of our future jobs in the air force.

Joyce Neale

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.