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This story has been written onto the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ People’s War site by Cornwall CSV Storygatherer, Martine Knight, on behalf of Kathleen Webb. Her story was given to the Trebah WW2 Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was 18 when war broke out, working for the Post Office, and was posted to Truro. When Plymouth was blitzed they made Truro the centre for teleprinters and telegrams. Some of the messages received were tragic and we weren’t allowed to phone through death messages. They had to be delivered by the messenger boy.
We had telegraph machines linked to London, Bristol, Glasgow, Nottingham and all over. It was a hive of activity. I did quite a bit of code work too.

I shared a flat with three others and we were quite independent for those days. We each put thirty shillings a week into the kitty and that paid for rent and food. One girl came from a farm near Redruth and when she went home at weekends she came back with supplies of butter and cream etc. My family lived in Mevagissey so when I went home I came back with fish so we lived quite well really.

I wanted to join the WRNS, but couldn’t as I was in a reserved occupation.
My then fiancé, now my husband, was at El Alamein and from there went to Tripoli and up through Italy. He was away for 4 years so it was a long distance courtship. He came back for a month in 1946, but had to go back so it wasn’t very nice.

Video details CWS040604 15:16:26 to 15:34:10

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