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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 3 Follows

War Memoirs — Joyce Neale.

Part 3

A few months passed and we heard some of us were being posted again, but for a while we did not know where. When we found out we were going back to Stafford, we were stunned. And of course we were leaving behind a lot of good friends. But that is what happens in the forces. We were not looking forward to leaving behind our lovely warm huts, but you just have to get on with it, and of course we also met up with a few old friends. At least we did not have to do that half hour march in the morning this time, as we were working quite near our huts now. In fact our officers were American, we were sent on a course to learn the code, which was used on the then computers, which were huge, and took up two big rooms, the punch and verifying room, and the tabulating room. Our job was to punch the information of any parts that were needed for air planes either fighter, or big bomber planes to keep them flying. The code was to keep the information to a minimum, it was then put through a verifying machine to check for any mistakes, and then into the tabulating room to be sorted into where it was to go! i.e., the correct maintenance unit for the correct part for the correct plane. I think banks still use this method for some banking. My friend Audrey worked in the tabulating room and went on to do the same work when she was Demobbed , I tried to do that but it meant travelling into London every day, which I could not afford to do.

This was the time that the Germans started sending over the doodle bugs, which were a different tactic to scare the British Public, and it worked; they made a buzzing noise when over head and flames were shooting out of the back. When the noise stopped, we knew it was on its way down, and it was time to take cover. I found out what it was like to experience this while home on leave, as we did not have the doodle bugs in Stafford. I could see what effect these were having on my parents, so I suggested that they came to Stafford for a few days to give them a break. I booked them into the Station Hotel for a few nights, and managed to get two days leave to be with them, and show them around the area. I think the highlight of their trip was to be taken to our camp cinema one night, as we did occasionally have special shows put on for us, and this night it was the Royal Philharmonic orchestra. My friend Audrey had managed to get three tickets, for us and as my father was a musician and played a trombone in the local town band he was over the moon to be able to see such a huge orchestra. Their were so many musicians they could not all get on the stage and so there were some on the side ,and we were so close to them we felt we were part of the orchestra. My father could not get over the fact he had seen this great orchestra for as little as six old pennies. I was so glad we had been able to make my Dad so happy; he kept on about it for
days, and told all of his fellow musicians in the Hoddesdon town band all about it, which gave me a thrill to make Dad so happy in these dark days.


My job as a punch operator was getting very hard, as it was for all of us, we were under pressure to keep up our quota of cards to about three hundred a day, bearing in mind all the information had to be broken down into the code, things were now going great guns in Europe, our troops were advancing very quickly.

The weather was a big problem, lots of snow, which then melted, causing great problems, everywhere including on camp. A lot of the huts got flooded, they also found quite a few people on camp had contracted TB. My mother read this in the daily papers, and went to see our MP; it was bought up in parliament. So we were all X rayed to see if we were clear, two people in our hut had contracted it, and were moved into sick bay, which was a shock to us . I myself ended up in sick bay some time later with bronchitis, I was in for about a week , and was then given sick leave , so was able to go home , and be made a fuss of by mum and dad, which was nice .

On my return to camp I was called into see the officer in charge of our section, I thought I was in trouble for something, but no, it was to tell me I had been promoted to corporal, which came as a nice surprise. I could now wear two stripes on my arm, and take charge of small groups on parade, which the girls had a laugh about, and pulled my leg about. My friend Mavis lived quite near camp, and would go home at weekends. I went with her a couple of times, and her parents always made me very welcome. There was a big American air base near her home, and she would go to dances there with a male cousin, as he worked on the base. This particular night she went to a dance there with him, came home on the bus, and as he lived quite near her he left her at the top of her road, and watched her for a little while until he thought she was home safely. But someone was watching her, and as soon as he thought it was safe, he attacked her, knocked out some her teeth gave her two black eyes, broke her jaw, among other horrible things. Her father was waiting up for her, but did not hear a thing, until she fell against the front door. He was so upset when he saw her; I think he blamed himself, although he could not have known what was going on. She was in Hospital for quite a long time, they able to put her teeth back in the gums, and hoped they would be OK, although she could not speak for some time. Of course, the police were informed, but I am not sure if they ever caught him. Some of us went to see her in Hospital; eventually she came back to camp, but would never walk on her own, and eventually got a discharge. Of course this made the daily papers, and my mother read all about it, so I had to put her mind at rest that I was OK!

While on camp we became aware of this high pitched noise we could hear a lot of the time, so one nice day a friend and I decided to go for a walk, leaving by the back entrance to the camp. It was quite a nice day and there was some nice country side around there so we went in the direction of this high pitched noise we could hear down a country lane. We were quite a long way down when we came across this barrier. We stood there wondering what to do, when an armed airman appeared, he said we could not go any farther as it was a restricted area, and so we had to turn back. We found out later, it was a place where they tested jet engines, before they were used in fighter planes etc.

Some time later we learned that the war was going well and things were winding down, and a few months later Victory in Europe was declared, but the war in the Far East was still going on. On camp we had a great celebration for V.E. day - we had parades with each section dressed up as each country that had taken part in the war. In the evening we were allowed off camp in our civilians clothes, so we all made our way into town linking arms across the road, which bought things to a stand still, but they did not mind as every one was so happy, and of course quite a few of us got really drunk, and ended up doing some silly things, like trying to climb lamp posts, getting into bed with clothes and shoes on. Of course, there were a few thick heads the next day. We were not so rushed at work now, but they still expected us to punch our quota of cards, which sometimes was a problem, so the girls said as our corporal you will have to see the Officer about it. I said I would, but only if they backed me up, so on this day we asked to see the Officer. We all waited outside her door to be called in. When we were, I turned round to the girls, and they had all disappeared, and I was on my own, but the Officer was very understanding, and reduced our quota, so every one was happy.

We could now go into town more often, or on the train to other towns, and of course we met quite a lot of Americans who always had lipsticks, nylons or sweets in every pocket. One local family we all got to know were very kind, and invited us to their home, they had a nice home and big garden, on which all of us, including the Americans played a form of bowls. They also had a full size snooker table, we had some good times with this family, and of course were very grateful to them, and they also gave lemonade and biscuits. They had a business in Birmingham I think they made pianos.

As I said, the war in the Far East was still going on, and that was a very nasty war, and a lot of our men had been prisoners of the Japanese for a long time, and had suffered a lot at their hands. Earlier in the war I had volunteered for duty in the Far East, even had my injections, but they found that a lot of girls had to be sent home with what was then called prickly heat, so we did not go in the end.

The war in the Far East finally came to an end in August I945, soon after the Americans dropped the Atomic bombs on Japan, which was a terrible happening, but it did bring this terrible war to an end, but it was still a long time to bring things to a close. I did not know it then but my future husband had been serving in this war, India, Burma, etc. We finally met about eighteen months later, he was directed to work in the same factory that I was working in, and we have been married now fifty five years.

The work we were now having to do, was mainly tying up loose ends, sorting out where and how aircraft parts were to go; personnel were to be put to a useful task, as things were a bit confused for a while, and we were still very busy, but it was nice to know that we could begin to get back to normal. We were now able to have more leave, which we all took advantage of; sometimes I would go home with a friend if they did not live too far away. We would also go into Birmingham for a weekend, and stay at a Hostel for forces people, which were very cheap. I remember going into a large store with a friend and we saw a large crowd around a demonstration, it turned out to be a television. At the time we did not think much of it and said it will never catch on - how wrong we were. I also remember going into the C.A. in Birmingham and saw a suit that I really liked. My parents had given me money for my birthday, so I tried it on, but it was too big, as I had lost a lot of weight. The store said they could alter it for small sum as they were trying to get more trade from us forces girls. It was a Charles Butler suit and it looked really nice so my friends said why don’t you buy it, which I did and went back a week later to collect it. I should mention that in order to buy clothes you had to have clothing coupons, but my mother had given me a few of hers, she thought I should have a little bit of luxury .

We were all anxious to know when our demob was going to happen, but we did not have an answer. Then we were given a date, so a group of us decided to book a week at Butlins holiday camp, which was getting very popular. We all decided it would give us a good break before going home, but at the last moment our demob was cancelled, as they realised there was still plenty for us to do. We were very disappointed, but just had to grin and bear it, and we still were a great group of friends.

We were still given quite a lot of work, and we still wanted to know when we were being demobbed, but gradually things began to wind down, and we were hopeful for our release. Over time, our pay had improved, and at last we had the date for our demob. We thought we would go to Blackpool as we were to be demobbed at Preston, and it is quite near Blackpool, and none of us had ever been to Blackpool before, but when the day came we all decided against this as we all wanted to get home. We were given a small amount of money, and a label and brown paper so we could send back our uniforms. The day we left camp, an officer came to our hut and said if we signed on for another year we could all be made up to officers etc. but we all declined. After three and a half years we had had enough, and I might add, this particular day our hut was flooded, to about four inches as we had, had a great deal of rain. She then started to call us names like wimps etc. But we stuck by our guns, and had great delight, and walked out.

On the train to London a lot of us said in five years time we would all meet at a certain place, and at certain time, but needless to say this did not happen, we were taken up with finding jobs, which was not easy, as firms were suspicions of us and thought we were not up to doing civi jobs. We all missed service life, and all our friends, and it took a long time to settle down. I am still in touch with one of my forces friends, although I have not seen her for years, and who is unfortunately nearly blind. I am hoping with the help of my grand daughter to send her a large print copy of this, as this is my first attempt at doing this on a computer, and my eye sight is not very good now. I hope this account of my life will be of interest to someone.

It does not seem nearly Sixty years ago that all this happened, I have no regrets about my life, with good memories of very good friends, my only sorrow is of the young men and women who did not come back, I wonder what they would make of this world today - my guess is, not a lot.
Joyce Neale.

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