Marjorie Hands
I remember the day war broke out very distinctly because my dad was very upset. He was in the First World War and he knew that his 3 sons would have to take part. I was delighted. I thought we'll have a bit of life in the town now! We all left school at 14 and we moved to Hexham, a market town. All of the youngsters were moving out and going into the forces. I was working in this high class store called Broughs. One day some of the girls said "let's go into Newcastle and volunteer for the RAF".
My 3 brothers were in the RAF, I was only 17 so my father had to give me consent to go to the recruiting station. I went in first. I was always one of those people who wanted to do everything first. They said we don't need anyone for the WAAFs, would you consider going into the ATS! I said that was fine so I signed up. They couldn't take my 2 friends because their paperwork was stuck in the system. So I was the only one they took. My father wasn't very happy.
I was sent to my training at Harrogate, at Queen Ethelberg school. There were 10 weeks of training and I loved it all. Drilling on the square, I loved all that! Then we were posted. Coming from Northumberland I thought I'd get a posting up north, but they sent me down to the Salisbury plains. It was lovely there. It was a garrison town called Bulford. There were lots of towns completely for the military. There were married quarters with wives and children and schools, but during the war all those people had to leave and the ATS took over the married quarters. We were 5 girls to a house with a Corporal in charge. We were under Southern Command and looked after supplies for the troops, providing them with food, equipment and transport.
Where we lived in Hexham it was only a little market town so we didn't know the bright lights at all. On the Salisbury plain I met with some lovely girls from London. They weren't streetwise but they just seemed to have been around more than us. It was an incentive to pick their brains, because I'd never met people like this. In the headquarters where we worked, we had all these Generals and Officers, very posh people and it all rubs off on you. Because I never had a very strong geordie accent, and mixing with all these London girls, it just disappeared. Of course, when I went back home on leave they thought I spoke rather posh!
Entertainment was dancing, 6 times a week and twice on Sunday. I'd always leave before the end because I never really wanted to get involved with people, I only wanted to do my dancing. So we just kept in a crowd of girls, we didn't pair off with boyfriends, we just talked to everybody.
I was working in the records office, which was very good because you heard all about the court marshals. I learnt more in the records office about the birds and bees than I ever did from my mom and dad! I'll tell you about my sex education at school. We were getting ready to leave at 14 and up until then not a word had been said. The one day this teacher, Miss Burke, said "Now girls, I have something very important to say to you before you leave. You're going out into the big wide world and when you meet your boyfriends you must tell them to go this far, and no further". That was all she said to us, and I never found out what this far and no further was. That was our sex education!
I met George in 1945. One day we went down to the canteen to fetch our tea and coffee and there were a couple of Airborne chaps in. They were paratroopers with their lovely red berets on. I think they had just done their jumps and qualified. They shouted over "Are there any dances in this camp?" and I said "Yes, the garrison gym tonight". I loved dancing. My brothers were beautiful dancers. One did jiving, one ballroom, and one old time, so I was alright to go dancing with. I said to my friend "We'll go tonight and I'll stand back and see. If he can dance, I'll say hello to him, if he can't dance I'm not going in". Well he was a fabulous dancer! So that's it, he's the one for me, and danced for 50 years.
When you went to the office for your pay packet, they gave you free chocolate and free cigarettes. That's what encouraged our generation to smoke, they were free. One thing I've got to say about being in the forces, and this is a fact, if you were out on your own you could guarantee that the chaps you met were very respectful. If you were walking along on your own, someone would say "would you like me to walk you home?" and you knew that they meant just walk you home and that was fabulous, because you were never afraid to go anywhere. But it was fabulous when I think about it now, the trust we put in all those troops.
I was demobbed in September 1946, and I think just about then the novelty wore off. You'd been 3 years away from home and were anxious to start up another life. George went to Palestine, they were sent to keep the Jews and Arabs apart. He went out in 1946 and was away for 2 years. All we did was correspond through letters, we wrote love letters. I worked as a clerk in a dry cleaning department until George came back. We got married on 3 April and went to York for our honeymoon, which was only one night, and then back to Birmingham. For wedding presents we had wineglasses, a pair of blankets, a pair of towels, and tablecloth and a fruit bowl. We've still got the fruit bowl!
