The Girls Who Went to War: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces

As she listened to the sad story, Jessie’s heart went out to Jim, but his words had a different effect on her mother. ‘I’m not keen on that one,’ she told Jessie, after the young man had set off back to Bleak House. ‘He’s got no family, no background. You don’t know who he is.’

‘Neither does he, Mum,’ Jessie reasoned. ‘You can’t hold that against him.’

But Mrs Ward shook her head firmly. ‘You don’t want to get involved with him,’ she said.

Jessie took little notice of her mother’s advice, however, and soon Jim was stopping by at the greasy spoon several times a week to see her. They spent hours at a time cycling around the countryside together, pausing every now and then for a kiss and a cuddle, until it was time for him to accompany her back home.

Jim hadn’t failed to notice Mrs Ward’s coolness towards him. ‘I don’t think your mother likes me,’ he told Jessie one day, as they were cycling back to Holbeach Bank.

‘Oh, don’t worry. She doesn’t like anyone!’ Jessie replied, trying to make light of the situation.

But Jim was uncharacteristically serious. ‘You know, it’s hard for me to meet new people,’ he told her. ‘They always want to know about my family.’

‘Well, I don’t care who your parents are,’ Jessie declared. ‘And anyway, the way some families are, you’re probably well off without one!’

But despite Jessie’s words, Jim was determined to win her mother over. One evening, he turned up at the little house in Holbeach Bank bearing an enormous fillet of smoked salmon. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t stolen it,’ he told Mrs Ward when he saw the suspicious look in her eye. ‘We over-ordered at the officers’ mess and it was going to be thrown in the bin.’

‘Well, in that case, I suppose we’d better eat it,’ Jessie’s mother replied, taking the fillet off to the kitchen.

When the food was served, even Mrs Ward had to admit that the salmon was delicious, and fresher than anything the family had eaten since the start of the war. But her frostiness towards Jim didn’t thaw one bit.

Mr Ward, on the other hand, clearly enjoyed having a soldier in the house. ‘You know, the cooks are the most important people in the Army,’ he declared over dinner, looking over approvingly at Jessie’s guest. ‘When I was in the trenches, they were the ones who kept our peckers up. As Napoleon said, an army always marches on its stomach!’

After Jim had left at the end of the evening, Jessie’s father turned to her. ‘I like that young man,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad that he’s an Army lad, not one of those stuck-up Navy or Air Force types.’

But despite the wonderful salmon, the expression on Mrs Ward’s face made it clear that her opinion of Jim hadn’t altered one bit.

Jessie soon discovered that Jim was forming his own views about her mother as well. ‘You know, you take too much notice of her,’ he announced one day while they were out cycling. ‘You shouldn’t let her boss you about so much.’

‘Well, there’s no point arguing with her,’ Jessie told him. ‘It only makes things worse.’

‘Maybe,’ Jim replied. ‘But don’t let her keep you under her thumb.’

The more time Jessie spent with Jim, the more she felt herself falling in love with him – but her feelings were of no concern to the Army. One day, out of the blue, orders went up at Bleak House announcing he was being transferred to Sleaford, 25 miles away. There were no more romantic bike rides after work, and Jessie found she missed Jim terribly.

Fortunately, he was billeted with a kind local vicar who allowed him to use the phone once a week. He would write to Jessie and let her know what time he would be calling, so that she could queue up at the phone box in the village for a quick snatched conversation. It was wonderful to hear his voice, even only briefly, but afterwards she always returned home glumly, knowing it would be another seven days before they could speak again.

Before long, Jim was sent even further away, to Woodhall Spa, where they could no longer even talk on the phone. Now Jessie lived for his letters, which arrived faithfully every other day. He was a natural writer, and the two of them filled pages and pages with heartfelt reminders of their love.

When Jim wrote one day and asked Jessie if she would marry him, she knew instantly that her answer was yes. But she also knew that her mother would do her best to talk her out of it.

Jim’s words echoed in Jessie’s mind: ‘Don’t let her keep you under her thumb.’ She picked up a pen and quickly wrote back accepting Jim’s proposal, making sure the letter was signed, sealed and posted before she went in to tell her parents the news.

‘Jim’s asked me to marry him – and I’ve said yes,’ she announced excitedly, when she found them together in the living room.

Mrs Ward shot an annoyed look at her daughter, but she could see it was too late to change her mind. Instead she said coldly, ‘Well, you’ll have to wait until the war’s over. It would be very unwise to marry before then.’

Jessie was determined not to give too much ground. ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ she said boldly.

Her father grinned at her. ‘I don’t mind what you do love, as long as you’re happy,’ he said.

A few weeks later, when Jim was granted a day’s leave, he and Jessie met up in King’s Lynn. There he presented her with the most beautiful ring she had ever seen – it was made of platinum and encrusted with tiny diamonds.

As much as Jessie was thrilled about her engagement, it made life at home even more difficult. Her relationship with her mother was frostier than ever, and she realised that, even if she did defy her and marry Jim while the war was still raging, with the Army moving him around constantly, she would still be stuck at home until he was finally demobbed.

It didn’t look like the war would be over any time soon, either. When they gathered around the wireless in the evenings, Jessie and her family heard reports of aerial bombings in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and other big cities, including nearby Peterborough. A few bombs had even landed near Spalding. ‘Those blooming Germans are walking all over us,’ Mr Ward fumed.

Jessie was beginning to wonder what she was doing to help with the war effort. All she did was spend her days serving beans on toast. Surely there was something more she could do – perhaps even something that would have the added bonus of getting her out of Holbeach Bank.

Ever since Dunkirk, stories had been circulating about the brave ATS girls who had travelled to France with the British Expeditionary Force. Some had heroically escaped after having been captured by the Germans, while others had endured terrifying dive-bombing by the Luftwaffe. Their efforts had proved that the women’s forces deserved to be taken seriously, and now a massive recruitment drive was underway.

Jessie had seen the posters and advertisements up around the village, calling for girls to join the ATS – ‘YOU ARE WANTED TOO!’ they proclaimed in large, bold letters, alongside an image of a young woman marching in uniform. Jessie liked the idea of joining the Army, like her father, and when she wrote to tell Jim about her idea he was supportive. But she had a feeling that if she spoke to her mother, she would try to put a dampener on her plans.

When a friend who lived ten miles away in Boston invited Jessie to come and visit her for the weekend, she realised it was the perfect opportunity for her to join up without any interference. She took the bus into Grantham, where she knew there was an ATS recruiting office, and was ushered into a hall where a male Army sergeant was seated behind a desk. He took down her name, address and date of birth, and told her she would be hearing from them shortly.

‘I’ve signed up for the ATS,’ Jessie told her parents, as soon as she got back home after her holiday.

Mrs Ward didn’t even look up from her knitting. ‘Well, the Army ought to teach you what hard work is,’ she muttered.

‘I don’t mind working hard,’ replied Jessie. After all, her mother had been treating her as a domestic drudge for years.

Mr Ward, of course, was over the moon at the thought that he was going to have a daughter in khaki. ‘My Jessie’s going to win us the war, you know,’ he began telling anyone in the village who would listen.

Now that she had made the decision to join up, Jessie’s excitement was growing, but it soon began to be mingled with impatience. She had volunteered in December of 1941, and had been rated ‘A1’ at a medical exam in Grantham just before Christmas, but she was told that it wouldn’t be until the new year that the Army would get around to calling her up.

At long last, one crisp January morning, an official-looking envelope arrived on Jessie’s doormat. She tore it open to find a railway warrant and instructions for getting to an ATS training camp at Leicester the next day. She was to bring just one small suitcase, containing two pairs of pyjamas.

Jessie didn’t own any pyjamas, so she rushed into Holbeach to buy some, stopping off along the way to let her boss at the greasy spoon know that she was leaving to join the Army. ‘Well, I can’t argue with that!’ the woman said, wishing her luck.

The next morning, Jessie was up bright and early, ready to begin the journey to Leicester. To Mr Ward, it was a red-letter day, although his wife treated it just like any other. As far as she was concerned, Jessie might have been setting off for her usual shift at the cafe, not leaving home for the duration of the war.

Right now, though, nothing could dampen Jessie’s spirits, and she walked the two and a half miles to Holbeach Station fizzing with excitement. At the station, she presented her railway warrant and boarded a train to Spalding, where she had been instructed to make a connection that would take her to Leicester.

As she got on the second train, Jessie spotted a couple of girls she recognised from her medical in Grantham, and soon they had introduced themselves and were chatting away. One of them, Mary, was tall and slim, and carried herself with an air of quiet confidence. The other, Olive, was more cuddly-looking, with glasses and an infectious laugh.

As they got to know each other, the girls talked about their reasons for joining the ATS. Olive, it turned out, had signed up after a love affair turned sour. ‘I just got so fed up that I had to leave!’ she told Jessie and Mary with a giggle.

When they arrived at Leicester station, the girls were met by a railway transport officer, who pointed them in the direction of a fleet of ATS lorries. They clambered up over the tailgate of one of the vehicles, along with a group of other young women. They were all anxiously clutching little suitcases, with the same expression of bewilderment on their faces. They didn’t exactly look like an Army in waiting.

When the girls finally arrived at the barracks it was well into the afternoon, and they were led into the canteen for a late lunch. Jessie went up to the counter to get her food, and was surprised to find a familiar face serving her. It was Peggy Hogg, a girl she remembered from school, who was now on permanent staff at the camp as an ATS orderly.

‘Fancy seeing you here, Peggy!’ Jessie exclaimed, as the girl slopped a portion of mashed potato onto her plate. ‘I didn’t know you were in the Army.’

‘Oh yeah, I’ve been here a year now,’ Peggy replied with a sigh.

As Jessie returned to her seat, she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her old schoolmate. Wasn’t joining the ATS supposed to be about doing something important and exciting? Yet here was Peggy still at a training camp a year after she had signed up, with nothing more thrilling to do than doling out slop.

When they had eaten, the new recruits were led to the stores to be issued with their kit. A woman took one look at Jessie’s diminutive form and declared, ‘Size one in everything, and if it’s still too big you can take it in yourself with your hussif.’