Sand In My Shoes: Coming of Age in the Second World War: A WAAF’s Diary

I went out with Eric after all on Tuesday. He hadn't been able to phone because of our telephone being out of order. Bunty and Bernie came too and it was quite enjoyable, but I saw him without the glamour of the rain and the wind and my own laughing abandon, and he's a very ordinary boy.

Last night Joyce and I and her car, behaving itself for once, went to the pictures, smoking ourselves silly, and then coming back, spreading her rug before the fire and eating chips and my sponge cake from home, oranges and the last of Eric's chocolates, and I enjoying myself far more than the night before. We certainly are pampered in the WAAF. In addition to all MT drivers being forbidden to drive anything heavier than 15 cwt and no one allowed to work after four o'clock, we are to have masses of new equipment including still-expected snappy sports suits, TWO uniforms, brushes, combs and towels. The taxpayers are certainly doing us proud.

21 December 1939

Last night Joyce and I had a party. First I drank cider and then I drank gin and lime and then a concoction of Joyce's called Black Velvet and then gin and lime, and then I would have had a glass of sherry except that after two mouthfuls, swallowed in my urgent desire for the experience of drunkenness, Joyce drank the rest for me. I began to get very tired and just couldn't wake up to say goodbye when our guests went, and then the next thing I knew was that strange hands, e.g. Dillon and Firebrace, whose passes extended beyond ten o'clock, were undressing me. I endeavoured to sit up and protest against this outrage but they were both so much stronger than me that the rest of my clothes, to an accompaniment of soothing and infuriating murmurs, were taken from me. I got up a little later and was sick and then despite my shrieks that I wouldn't go to bed I was thrust into the blankets, given a bottle and then ignored when I wanted to talk with them.

Today, chastened and sick in my stomach, I have been the centre of indulgent amusement, and sat tonight pensively sipping a very weak brandy and soda recommended to soothe my stomach in front of the downstairs room fire, feeling that, as an experience, once is enough of getting drunk.

25 December 1939

They let us have breakfast at half past eight, a very nice breakfast of Cornflakes, ham, hot rolls and coffee, and afterwards numerous people came along to our billet bringing with them cakes and fruit and nuts and chocolate and even a wireless and we huddled round the downstairs fire sipping sherry, eating oddments and talking. Lunch was excellent – the inevitable turkey and Christmas pudding with nuts and fruit and beer – and our officers and sergeants to wait on us.

(#ulink_330c1b8e-c654-5ba6-a9ba-caed29e09c14) After lunch we repeated the morning's huddle round the fire till, at 6.30, we got ourselves out of our slacks and into reasonable clothes for the concert. It was an appalling concert but the airmen behind us were so amusing we laughed ourselves sick.

After the concert came a social at the NAAFI

(#ulink_9e04dace-1bdd-5578-a906-9ef69139cceb) for airmen and airwomen which we were all enjoying when the group captain removed the snarling WAAFs at eleven o'clock. From 11.30 to one o'clock we again sat round the fire eating and talking and so ended my first Christmas Day.

Events of 1939

1 September Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war.

3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany.

27 September Warsaw surrendered to the Nazis.

29 September National registration was carried out in the UK to supply the entire population with Identity Cards.

14 October HMS Royal Oak was sunk at port in Scapa Flow by a German U-boat; 833 men died in Britain's first heavy loss.

21 October Conscription began of men aged between twenty and twenty-three.

28 October The first German plane was shot down over Great Britain.

8 November A failed attempt to assassinate Hitler killed nine people in Munich.

30 November The Red Army marched into Finland.

(#u30be51e1-ccef-435c-a206-6c9bfa5076fd) Betty Ross, who lived with my parents as a paying guest when Shell was evacuated.

(#ulink_33a9b2ae-34d2-573f-8243-a1911a973d03) Bunty Goldie, now Bunty Jackman – still a close friend.

(#ulink_21194bb2-404c-514c-ac27-197439b21db0) Joyce Davidge.

(#ulink_21194bb2-404c-514c-ac27-197439b21db0) Non-Commissioned Officer.

(#ulink_57e9bcf4-1378-5053-a185-1b889678a49d) Renee Bedell – who had been working for the British Council.

(#ulink_57e9bcf4-1378-5053-a185-1b889678a49d) Mickey Johnston.

(#ulink_9a86bef7-5967-5cb8-85ed-aa6451afe3c5) Motor Transport.

(#ulink_672d206c-bcae-51a4-91fa-3c999183944e) A popular comedian of the time.

(#ulink_f191b429-cfe6-5471-9f31-8101027f7018) Bunty's parents.

(#ulink_f191b429-cfe6-5471-9f31-8101027f7018) Bernie and Eric were two friends of Bunty's; they all met at the Goldies' tennis club.

(#ulink_f1e88617-716b-51fb-b1b4-10cd725ceeb8) Aircraft Woman 1st Class.

(#ulink_a515b77d-a492-5296-a84f-09106c13ff69) By this time we had heard quite a bit about the existence of concentration camps within Germany. In 1938–9 there was a stream of refugees from Germany to the UK, mostly children, few of whom ever saw their parents again.

(#ulink_a8f0fa63-ec81-5f05-8e4d-19871d971309) Officers waiting on other ranks is still the custom in the Armed Forces on Christmas Day.

(#ulink_c0a9fb34-cf75-5ae3-8761-2a1e3a8a68c6) The Navy, Army and Air Force Institute runs shops and clubs for the Armed Forces, and then gives its profits back to the Services.

1940 (#u40cf5856-3134-5030-ad94-f36206ff0be2)

7 January 1940

Joyce and I have pulled the beds around the fire, stolen the pouffe from Peggy's bed downstairs, unpouffed it and spread it around the ground for us to loll against. On the beds are books and papers and cigarettes, on our dressing table are our eats for the evening: a loaf, butter, a Christmas cake and a tin of mushroom soup. Joyce has been lying on the floor battling for sound on our wireless, which is proving even less useful than our bloody little fire.

We had a church parade today, fortunately in the smaller and considerably warmer hangar with a very enthusiastic parson who urged us to be pieces of rock between interludes of calling us miserable sinners. I regrettably had a long-distance flirtation with the trumpet player. On my return I was then chivvied by the sergeant to (a) walk straight and (b) swing my arms. The first I find impossible, the second objectionable and concentrating on achieving both spoilt the dreams I have to make marching endurable. One of the warrant officers passed a lovely remark on our return to the orderly room: ‘Now that you've finished your God bothering.’

13 January 1940

Coming home on leave last night I bought Reader's Digest and found in it this perfect thing. It's supposed to be a song chanted by a four-year-old boy in his bath each night and his mother had managed to copy down this fragment:

He will just do nothing at all, he will just sit there in the noon-day sun

And when they speak to him he will not answer them, because he does not care to

He will stick them with spears and put them in the garbage

When they tell him to eat his dinner he will laugh at them

And he will not take his nap because he does not care to, he will go away and play with the panda

And when they come to look for him he will put spikes in their eyes and put them in the garbage

He will not go out in the fresh air or eat his vegetables or make wee wee for them and he will grow thin as a marble

He will do nothing at all, he will just sit there in the noonday sun.

I went over to Lensbury to have lunch with Barbara

(#litres_trial_promo) today (dear, kind, generous, delightful Shell, they paid all their staff, us serving members as well, a 10 per cent increase on their salary to cover the now increased cost of living and many weeks' back increase as well).