ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

EILEEN STARRAT PART TWO
Eileen came from Belfast - after the bombing raid on Belfast she joined the wrens and was sent to Derry for a time where she lived in Boom Hall before going overseas.

[What was a day in the life of a WREN at Magee College ops room?]
I can’t remember whether it was 4 hrs or 8 hrs. All the watches had names the Dog watch was 4-8, I remember that. 8-midnight, and sometimes you were on all night. Which I didn’t like at all, and I’m sure nobody else did. We would just go into the Ops room and announce ourselves. Or say to the WREN in charge. I was a Leading WREN, but that wasn’t very high up the scale. Who we were and how long we were there for. Or else she had it all written down. Probably it was all of the … well-organised. I’m sure it was.

[On Night watch, what did you do?]
There was a time for sleeping, and possibly kind of a room for that where you could rest a while. You sat with other operators, and you took whatever calls were assigned to you. Whatever space was assigned to you. That’s about all I can tell you.
I suppose I knew it was a very interesting things.

[Were the calls from land-lines or ships?]
They were probably from land-lines to us. Probably if they were from ships they would go to someone of higher authority.

[2 years in Belfast, 1 year in Derry?]
No. I was here about 6 months when the draft came through that I was to go back to Belfast, because this had come through and I was expected to go on to go abroad. I think that’s what happened. And I know that my mother probably wouldn’t, she had to sign the agreement because I was only 21, and I know she wouldn’t have done it if I’d been at home. She probably thought “oh well”. So there you are.

[did you have any idea where you were being posted to?]
Absolutely none. Nor did anybody else.
It was 1st April 1943, and I was told to report to somewhere in Liverpool. I was with another WREN who originally lived in Malta, and we were going together. We went to Liverpool and from there to London. And the place in London where we stayed for a week was called Golden Square. It was beautiful, beautiful place. It was old Victorian houses in a square, and a lovely park area in the middle. I must just go ahead, I don’t know how many years, my daughter was in London, and when I went to see her first she had an A-Z map of London. She brought me to Golden Square to see it. I couldn’t believe it. I was so sorry neither of us had a camera. That’s where we went, to Golden Square for a week. It was somewhere near Picadilly. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras with us. We weren’t allowed to keep diaries, although I think it was done. And we were able to go out in London, but in a limited sort of way, and we had to report back quite early in the evening I think.
We went back to Liverpool, and on in Liverpool was the troopship. And it was HMT, T for troop-ship, Orangi. It was thought to be of Dutch origin, and it was thought to be 23k tons. I’m not too sure about that, that’s from memory. Now, we sailed Liverpool up the Irish Sea. And there were 4 engines onboard. First of all I remember going on board, and a young soldier jumped from the top deck. He didn’t want to go. But that’s the only time I ever heard of any such thing happened. That’s the only time we were ever aware of it.
There were 4 engines, and one of them broke down, so the ship had to go to the Clyde. You can picture that, up the Irish Sea to the Clyde, to a place called Gurrock, and we lay off there as they called it for week. Now … we didn’t [know where we were going] but we could write letters, and we wrote letters to HMS Assegai. We weren’t really sure where that was, but we wrote these letters. These letters were posted in Gurrock, when we were only a short spell of the journey, and my mother and my sisters got these letters and knew where we were going before we did. They were able to consult my, one of my sisters was in the WRNS and she was able to ask where that was and found out we were going to South Africa, we were going to Durban. So we missed the convoy going. The first convoy, and we had 2 destroyers as escort to take us round the north coast of Ireland, right down … to Freetown, West Africa. The first glimpse of Africa we had was Casablanca. We could see the white minarets, and somebody told us that was Casablanca. And we got to Freetown. The thing I remember about it was young boys fishing for pennies. In the sea, swimming about.
We were in Freetown for just a day, just stayed there of course. And then down the coast of Africa, past Cape Town which we didn’t see at all, to Durban.

We stayed in Durban for all … there were dances on board every afternoon. And they formed a sort of a team of people who took part in converts and gave us concerts. People who could sing and that sort of thing.
There was no … it was lovely.

[How many people were on the troopship?]
There were about 4 dozen WRENS, and Air Force and different people. It was a big ship, very big. I’ve often wondered that, we were never told.
Another thing you wouldn’t expect, the food was dreadful. Whether that was because we were on the Clyde for a week, and the food was, I don’t know. Nowadays it would be reported, but it wasn’t.
Then we went up the coast of the Indian Ocean to Mombassa. And it was a very deep place. The water’s very deep in the harbour there. And I was there for 2 1/2 years. We went on leave to Nairobi in Kenya once. Every 6 months. And we were supposed to go there when we had malaria. But there were so many people with malaria that they stopped doing that. I slept in a hut called a Banda, and there weren’t any windows, just shutters, and we slept under mosquito nets. At the naval base. So times I was on duty from 8-4, and if I were on duty at 8 I would try to walk to this naval base because it was cool. And we, actually I worked 8-4 every other day. In between we went sailing, which was wonderful. And kept us healthy, as well.

To go to Nairobi we went by train, and Nairobi was a place I never really liked because I didn’t know it. But the atmosphere, the air up there was not conducive. It was high, very very high, and we were living on the coast. And it was hard to adjust to that.
But we stayed with people in a sort of Bed & Breakfast situation. On farms in Kenya. It was wonderful.
When the time came to go home we came a way up by train to a place called Inchmalaya in the desert. We were near Cairo, we were able to visit Cairo, and then further up was Alexandria, and we sailed home from there. Through the med. And we heard about the German ships scuttling. The U-boats scuttling.
Incidentally, on the troopship some nights we had to sleep in full clothes and we never slept without a lifejacket beside us. And at times we were called up on deck, and we knew there had been something, because we looked next morning at the wash of the ship, off the stern, it was all zig—zag. It wasn’t straight. It was sort of a detective system to see if there had been anything the night before. But we were young, and it was all an adventure.

[Did you feel in danger?]
No. But coming home, yes. We knew that the U-Boats were scuttling themselves. So, I got home then. That was that.

It changed me totally. I can remember the inspectors in teaching telling me “you’re very good at taking the children outside”, meaning out of the classroom. And I think that’s part of what I inherited, as it were. And I’d tell them bits about it, when it was suitable. I never dwelt on it, but it changed me totally.
I went to Loughfield and enjoyed that very much. We had wonderful tutors there, and all the students were ex-service.

We haven’t been out for over a year, I suppose. But when we pass over the new bridge, there’s Broom Hall just below. And I always look at it and I think “they’re going to do something with that some of these days. And they’re going to spoil it.”
Also going along the strand, I look at the gates of McGee. And incidentally, when I look at my children, 2 of my children went to McGee. And my husband, he took 2 degrees when he retired. And one of them was a “Peace Studies”. He was the first student of Peace Studies. And I would say to them “you weren’t the first person at McGee”. This was the only reference I would make.

There’s also a place called Crawford’s Square. And the place there isn’t there any more. I think it was burned or else destroyed. And it was the Allied Officers’ club. It was a lovely place for just chatting and general conversation.
It was just at the side of the road, like a great big house. Crawford’s Square, great big houses on the left-hand side and then the right-hand side. It’s near [ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝ Radio Foyle].

[Who went there?]
WRENS — some of the Wrens I worked with asked me to come along. There were all nationalities there, mostly naval people. It was like a club, a social club.

[It sounds like the war was a good time]
I agree with you there. But an awful lot of people still talk about it as if it were the time of their lives. My husband would totally disagree. There are people who would still wear the uniform, if they had it. Who would talk about it. I think we just put it in a kind of place where we can enjoy it, not flaunt it at all. That’s not what it’s for.

[Did you have a sense of achievement?]
I think so. My husband, he talks about the war being a waste of time. Yet it was absolutely needed, what he did. When you saw what happened in Belfast — WE saw what happened in Belfast. The people who were killed. And the mind that Hitler had. And to me to this day I still can’t understand why we didn’t know more about the camps. The terrible places that Hitler …
I forget the Liam Neeson film. [Schindler’s List] I saw that with a young neighbour who married a German. And he came, I think he was with us to see it, and he was very impressed in the way that we were. I can’t understand the way it was. Maybe if we lived in a different place we would have known about it. It was shocking.

[Did you deal with Telecommunications info from naval points all over the world?]
Oh yes. But that would be specialised. It would be … something that just a few people would deal with. There certainly was such a sting as careless talk. We were very very aware of that, so there wasn’t that didn’t exist really or shouldn’t have. But yes, I think you did have a sense of achievement, of having done something. I told my children years ago that I joined up years ago, because of this, because of what had happened that night. And what I became aware of. It certainly affected me in that way, I joined up. I told them that whether it sounds romantic or not. It may have been, it probably was, but it’s totally and utterly because that is what I wanted to do.

[Was there no alcohol at social events? What refreshments were served at Crawford’s Square?]
Gin and tonic, I suppose. Or sherry, it wasn’t anything stronger than that. Oh yes there was, but my father was an alcoholic. So therefore I certainly might take an odd drink … but I never ever would have taken too much.
They were serving alcohol …

[Apparently at the Corinthian dance-hall there was lemonade, you wouldn’t go to the bar for a drink]
No, you wouldn’t. And you would never have gone into a pub to buy anything. Women just wouldn’t go into the pubs. That’s not to say that they didn’t, but some of them might have. Oh no, it was a different sort of atmosphere altogether in that respect.

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