Margery’s Story: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces

Margery’s Story: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces
Duncan Barrett

Calvi Calvi

From the bestselling authors of The Sugar Girls and GI Brides, this is Margery’s story, one of three true accounts from the book The Girls Who Went to War.“‘Who does that man think he is?’ Margery muttered to a girl standing next to her. The words had slipped out before she could stop herself, but she realised, to her horror, that the warrant officer had heard them. ‘What was that?’ he demanded, striding over and fixing her with an angry stare. Margery gulped – but there was no going back now.”In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone against Germany. The British Army stood at just over one and a half million men, while the Germans had three times that many, and a population almost twice the size of ours from which to draw new waves of soldiers. Clearly, in the fight against Hitler, manpower alone wasn’t going to be enough.Margery Pott signed up for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, leaving her quiet home for the rigours of training, the camaraderie of the young women who worked together so closely and to face a war that would change her life forever.Overall, more than half a million women served in the armed forces during the Second World War. This book tells the story of just one of them. But in her story is reflected the lives of hundreds of thousands of others like them – ordinary girls who went to war, wearing their uniforms with pride.

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Copyright (#u8aaa7c09-2387-552f-aee1-6640eb681753)

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First published by HarperElement 2015

© Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs (not representations of the women portrayed herein) © George W. Hales/Getty Images (WAAF officer); The Everett Collection/Mary Evans Picture Library (military officer); IWM Collection (WRNS officer); London Fire Brigade/Mary Evans Picture Library (background)

Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi assert the moral right

to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007501229

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007517558

Version: 2015-03-17

Contents

Cover (#u18b99579-3567-5d26-835e-9b440c2cc91f)

Title Page (#ulink_64f39f3f-4c2b-5403-94c4-01f109e7e4b8)

Copyright (#ulink_39ea8b04-894d-5902-bead-bc2a04b7703c)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_73d5ef47-2abf-5480-94c9-8e7361dcda82)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_8091cd95-b850-5ebe-80be-e96dd72a8496)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

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About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#u8aaa7c09-2387-552f-aee1-6640eb681753)

When Margery Pott announced that she had joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, her family couldn’t help laughing. Surely, they thought, she must be pulling their legs – but the serious look on her face told them it was no joke.

‘Fancy Margery doing that!’ was all her sister Peggy could say, a remark that accurately captured the view of the whole family. It was, in fact, a view that Margery privately shared – she was the last person in the world who anyone would expect to join up.

If anyone should be answering the call to war, it ought by rights to be Peggy. A tomboy three years older than Margery, she had always been the fighter of the family. When Margery was a little girl and her best friend Daisy had knocked her to the ground, it was Peggy who had rescued her, marching up and giving her attacker a good walloping.

Growing up, Peggy had always been there to protect Margery, but she had also been a tough act to follow. She loved nothing better than cycling to the local forest and camping out overnight, and her favourite films were action-packed Westerns. Margery was too scared of insects and the dark to join her sister on her expeditions, and their mother didn’t let her go to the cinema in case the cowboy movies gave her nightmares.

As the youngest of three daughters, Margery was the baby of the family, and Mrs Pott kept her wrapped in cotton wool, forbidding her to ride Peggy’s bike for fear that she would fall off and hurt herself. Little did she know that Peggy had already taken it upon herself to give her little sister lessons in secret.

Mrs Pott had a lot on her plate, since she also had her husband’s failing health to worry about. His emphysema, which had prevented him from fighting in the last war, was only worsening thanks to the dust he inhaled in his job as a maltster, turning the roasted barley every day. Mrs Pott kept a spittoon for him to cough into each morning, and poor Mr Pott would hack and hack until he brought up large lumps of phlegm. But at least his employment meant that the family got to live in the maltster’s house, which meant they were the only ones in the little rural village of North Wallington to have running water.

When Margery began secondary school, she felt more in her sister’s shadow than ever. ‘Oh, Peggy was ever so good at games,’ were the words that greeted her when she first arrived on the school playing field. Margery, who had never been particularly good at anything physical, felt her heart sink. In her academic lessons she always did well, but she was convinced she was nothing special.

By the time Margery left school at 15, Peggy had already moved out to train as a nurse. But when she urged her little sister to follow suit, their mother was horrified, and soon Margery had been dissuaded. Instead, she took evening classes in accountancy and found herself a job close by, in the back office of the local baker’s.

At Pyle & Son Margery spent her days perched at a high desk, scribbling away in the accounts ledger. She was ruled over by the head clerk, a woman named Miss Pratt, who was always on the lookout for ink blotches. Miss Pratt quickly discovered Margery’s pliant nature and began adding to her list of official duties. Soon the poor girl was required to clean the offices each morning, light the fires, type up the menus for the bakery’s cafe and even wait tables, in addition to the bookkeeping she had been hired for.

One day, when Peggy popped in to see Margery, she was furious to find her stacking up goods for the delivery round. ‘My sister is a ledger clerk,’ she fumed. ‘She shouldn’t be packing buns!’ But her outburst made no difference in the long run. When one of the horses escaped from its cart on the way back from the delivery round, it was Margery who was sent to catch it, and then to the chemist to fetch the ointment she was expected to rub into the animal’s sore knees.

The unsatisfactory situation reached a new low one day, when Miss Pratt flew into a rage and called Margery a nincompoop for failing to fetch the dog’s dinner. Margery wasn’t normally one to stand up to authority, but even she could see it was time to leave.