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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Mary Blood and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Mary’s story, together with the war story of her husband, Harry Blood, was transcribed onto a floppy disc by Fred Kennington, thereby saving Stockport Library Service staff an immense amount of work!

By now the war had been going on for nearly three years. In many respects it had become the ‘norm’. That is not to say we were enjoying it – it was a fact of life with which you had to cope. Yes, there were air raids; yes, there was the constant awareness that aircrew were going out and not returning. You felt that nothing would happen to you. The common thought at the time was, ‘If it’s got my name on it……’ We had to work hard, and we played hard. The way of life in the Forces meant that everything was provided for you. Meals were there; if your shoes needed repair, you took them in; if something wore out, you went to Equipment and changed it. We were all in our late teens or twenties and we did the best we could to enjoy ourselves. If we didn’t enjoy life when we were young, then, tough, so you retained your own individuality as far as was possible in the prevailing circumstances. You had to learn tolerance; you had to learn to cope with, and mix with people whom you might not like or ever want to have met. But, I regard this period as ‘my University of Life’. You grew up very quickly!

So, here I was at Kirton Lindsey early in 1943. Postings were normally to stations within your own Group, in this case 12 Group, Fighter Command. Kirton had a satellite station at nearby Hibaldstow, and part of its function was to exchange Squadrons with Coltishall to relieve those aircrew who had been on active service for a period and let them have a short ‘rest’.
The combined stations, the main one at Kirton opened in May 1940 and the satellite at Hibaldstow opened in 1941, had together about two thousand personnel. Kirton was built as a permanent R.A.F. station although it had only grass runways; Hibaldstow was a Nissen-hutted site with only the control tower as a concrete structure. The latter still stands today and has been converted into a private house. But Hibaldstow had concrete runways.

Again, I went into the Airmen’s Mess. I left Coltishall as LACW. Within the first couple of days at Kirton, I was serving dinners when a W.A.A.F. Corporal came behind me. She said, ‘Oh, Mary’. I turned around to find she had taken the Corporal’s tapes off her arm and promptly fastened them to mine. Now, I was an N.C.O., Corporal Pettit. The recommendation came from Coltishall and was passed to Kirton.

The W.A.A.F. Messing Officer was a lady called Elspeth Ross. She was an excellent Officer and a very pleasant person. After she left the service, she took a similar job at a Police College near Harrogate, and remained in that area. She had an assistant, Corporal Rene, whose maiden name I can’t recall. She came from Ystalyfera in the Neath Valley. Being a native Welsh speaker, she spent a lot of time telling us the proper way to pronounce ‘Ystalyfera’. Rene married a Canadian Sergeant, Wally. They returned to Canada and we visited them in Canada long after the war. They also visited us in Stockport. It shows just how long-term friendships were made in the forces.

Now that I was Cpl.Pettit, my job changed. The other Corporal who had put the tapes on my arm, Olive, and I shared the responsibility for the running of the Airmen’s Mess. We had staff of twenty or so and worked alternate shifts to cover the job. What was the job? The cooks, under a Flight Sergeant, prepared and cooked the food, bringing it to the long servery in the Mess. It was made of stainless steel, heated by steam, with hot cupboards underneath. Breakfasts were served from about 0630 until about 0900. Dinner was between 1200 and 1400, but with a concentrated serving about 1200 – 1230. Tea was served between about 1600 – 1800. After that there were personnel on night shifts; personnel on the anti-aircraft batteries and miscellaneous bods to be served. It was a 24-hour service. We served several hundred staff in the half hour and things had to be organised. Everybody had their specific jobs; plates had to be there; meat, vegetables and puddings had to be there. That half-hour saw a queue of airmen round the Mess and out of the door. Time was not on your side – they had to get back to their sections. You would be dishing food out and never see the face in front of you. I had a Corporal Instructor friend, Mac. I didn’t always see him in front of me and he used to say, ‘You never saw me and I got the worst piece of meat’!

That was only part of the work. As at Coltishall, we had to keep the place spotless, with the usual boiling water and caustic soda. When the men had eaten, they had to take their plates back to a point near the end of the servery and just outside the plate-room door. Any uneaten food they had to scrape off the plate into a bin, and then wash their ‘irons’ in a sink nearby. Dirty plates went into a rudimentary dishwasher in the plate room and that area had to be kept clean. A local farmer collected the swill bins.

One way of supplementing staff was to use those on ‘jankers’. Meat, roast potatoes, etc. had to be cooked in big tins which had to be cleaned out. Now the tin room was not a popular place, but it was a good destination for those who had got themselves on a ‘charge’. In those days, there were no ‘appeals’. If you got punishment, you had to take it. If you didn’t want to end up in the tin room, then don’t get yourself on a charge! I had one W.A.A.F. one day, a Clerk/SD from the Operations Room. They were several rungs above us. She had been sent in on ‘jankers’. She had been helping to squeegee the dining room floor. The dirty water from washing the floor drained towards a drain at the end of the servery. It left a quantity of ‘muck’ to be kept away from the drain. I told her to get a shovel and a bucket and clean it up. She said, '#8217;Oh, you don’t mind if I’m sick, do you?’ I said ‘Not at all, as long as you clean that up as well!’ No further comment – the floor was duly cleaned up!

With all this food, there was a certain amount of fat coming off the plates and dishes. That was eventually washed down the sinks. Steps had to be taken to avoid blockages. There was a device at the end of each outlet pipe to collect the fat. Apart from the need to keep the outlets clean, the fat was collected and sent away to make soap.

As at Coltishall, the Airmen’s Mess adjoined the N.A.A.F.I. and the partition between them could be opened up to make a big hall for dancing or entertainment. Air raids were few and far between by then, and the station had got more entertainment and had its own band and concert party. For that the Mess had to have tables cleared to one end and returned for breakfast the next morning. We would stay behind to do these jobs. It was a case of working together which we did very well.

In earlier days, when I was an ACW, I had had to do ‘Duty Airwoman’, and be a runner for the ‘Duty N.C.O.’ Now I was an N.C.O., I had to do ‘Duty N.C.O.’. There had to be a ‘Duty Officer’ on duty and because not many officers were available, the Sergeants had to do ‘Duty Officer’. That meant that the Corporals had to do all, or most, of the ‘Duty N.C.O.’. With only about fourteen W.A.A.F. Corporals, we had to do that duty once a fortnight. There was a W.A.A.F. Guardroom. The name ‘Guardroom’ is a bit of a misnomer in the case of the W.A.A.Fs. It was largely an administrative centre. Leaving camp, whether on leave, or just going out, you had to sign in and out there, as an example. During normal working hours, it was manned by admin. staff. When they finished it was the job of the 'Duty N.C.O.' to see to all the comparable duties. You were ‘Duty N.C.O.’ for twenty-four hours and you had a ‘Duty Airwoman’ with you. I know we had to parade sometimes, while the flag was raised or lowered at sunrise or sunset. The flag was always at the end of the parade ground nearest the Sergeants’ Mess. And, of course, it was sacrilege to put a foot on the parade ground other than for parades. Another little job was to accompany the 'Duty Officer' going round the Mess for “Any complaints?” Needless to say, there never were. But I have to say that the food at Kirton was very good and we had a good reputation. It was an agricultural area, we could get fresh food, and we had an excellent Messing Officer. With ‘Duty N.C.O.’ coming up about once a fortnight, it could pass with nothing of concern, but sometimes, it could be ‘interesting’. For some reason, we always got a supper, over and above our normal three meals. That was sandwiches; the normal ones were ‘doorsteps’, but I used to tell the staff I was on duty, and they arrived with a nice packet of very thin sandwiches, cut daintily in quarters, and with as much filling as there was bread.

I almost found myself on a ‘charge’ when I was on duty, all because I did another W.A.A.F. Corporal a good turn – or so I thought. This girl should have been back by midnight and signed in. She came ten minutes after that and I signed her in. Technically, I should have put her on a charge for being late, but you didn’t do that to another Corporal. As it happened, the W.A.A.F. Duty Officer was in the Guardroom with me when this took place, but she didn’t pass any comment. That would have been the end of the matter, but this girl, having signed in, decided to go off out again, and was caught. She was then put on a charge and brought up before the W.A.A.F. Commander. In the course of the proceedings, the W.A.A.F. Officer, who had been with me, remembered that I had signed her in. It might have been better had she said no more about it. The W.A.A.F. Commander dealt with the matter, but could only give the girl a limited punishment. It almost went to the Station Commander himself and, had that happened, I, too, would have been on a charge for signing her in after time. His punishment would have been much more severe and possibly she would have been demoted to LACW. All I got was a good telling off. I was very careful after that!

Another memorable incident was when two new girls arrived at the camp. They had come in the evening, and I had to find them some billets. There was a list of where everybody was, and what was vacant. The W.A.A.Fs. were still in the Married Quarters. I gave them a house number and told them where to find the billets. Five minutes later, one of them came back and asked if she could have a different billet. I wanted to know why, and was told that ‘It wasn’t very nice. It was dirty’, so I went to have a look myself. ‘It was dirty’ was an understatement; it was ‘alive’. How it got into this state I do not know. The billets were subject to regular inspections and everything had to be in order. In her case, she had had the room on her own for some time, although rooms were supposed to be shared and she must have avoided being there when there was an inspection. I found the two new arrivals other billets. That night, the Duty Officer was a W.A.A.F. Sergeant whose accommodation was next to the Guardroom. I went over and had a word with her, and we then both went to have a closer look at this girl’s room. It was in an appalling state. There was a kitbag containing five pairs of dirty pyjamas despite an issue of only two pairs and other assorted ‘filth’. Unfortunately for me, the ‘offending’ girl was my ’Duty Airwoman’. Now, for this night duty spent in the Guardroom, we had a supply of blankets so we could have a lie down. There was no way I was going to lie down on them that night. I sat up and kept a respectable distance from her. Meantime, the Sergeant, who had spoken to someone else in authority, came back to the Guardroom and told this girl to report, not to the sick bay, but to the hospital at 0900. She was held there for some time; she had to have her hair cut off, and to be fumigated. The house had to be fumigated before it could be allocated to anybody else. Just what happened to her I never found out. She was held in the hospital for some time and, later, when I had to go into hospital, I saw her mopping the floors. I think such incidents were few and far between, but not unknown.

So, I had to have a visit to hospital, albeit not for the same reason! I had wakened up one morning, feeling dreadful and had to report ‘sick’. That was a visit to the Medical Officer at the sick bay. I got 48 hours ‘excused duties’ and went back to bed. At the end of the time, I had to go back to see him and he sent me to hospital, the local R.A.F. hospital about a mile down the road. It was a batch of Nissen huts with small wards off and our M.O was in charge. It was more of a ‘cottage hospital’ type and more serious cases had to go to the main R.A.F. Hospital in Lincoln. Any airmen going in still had to wear ‘hospital blues’, and we W.A.A.Fs. had to wear the red ties. One of the rules was that the patient had to get up in the morning and make their own bed. If you were feeling ill, that was not a welcome chore, and a couple of other girls did it for me. Now as an airwoman, you were called by your surname. When you achieved the dizzy heights of Corporal, you were called either ‘Corporal’ or ‘Corporal Pettit’. One of the hospital orderlies insisted on calling me ‘Pettit’. I took the strongest objection to this and told her, ‘You can call me ‘Corporal’, or ‘Mary’, but you are not to call me ‘Pettit’. For once I had to pull rank. You could have visitors and, as my Mother lived at Lincoln, a bus ride away, she came to see me. She was told at the entrance that it wasn’t visiting time and she would have to come back. Passing the time away, she got talking to one of the men at the main Guardroom, telling him she was having to wait. ‘Missus,’ he said, ‘go back and tell them you are not moving until they let you in’. She did that and did not have to wait long before she, with my little sister, Jean, were allowed in. I had had some sort of ‘flu’ type and had to go to Scunthorpe Hospital for a chest x-ray before he sent me home on seven days sick leave. Otherwise I survived the W.A.A.Fs. with little trouble.

Apart from the trouble with this girl, only once did I put somebody on a charge. There were ‘wayward’ W.A.A.Fs. I was called out of bed at six o’clock one morning to be told that a girl was absent from her billet. I went to the Mess when, ten minutes later, the ‘missing’ girl walked in and told me she was ‘late up’. That was too much for me, as I knew perfectly well that she had stayed out all night. ‘Right, you’re on a charge’!

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