Interview with Queenie Hall.

Interview with Queenie Hall.

Queenie 'Robbie' Hall was born in Suffolk and had wanted to join the WRNS while under age; she bluffed her way into the RAF instead. She describes volunteering, her recruitment and training. At first she worked in kitchens but remustered as a clerk and worked in Command Accounts at RAF High Wycombe. She later requested a transfer to RAF Martlesham Heath to be close to Flight Sergeant Frank Arthur Vincent, her fiancée. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 75 Squadron until he was killed 25 August 1944. She also worked for a while at a secret establishment on Orford Ness. After the war Queenie worked on sales for a manufacturing company.

Additional information on Frank Arthur Vincent is available via the IBCC Losses Database.

2026-04-28

01:31:43 Audio Recording

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

AHallQ260428

PHallQ2601, PHallQ2602, PHallQ2603, PHallQ2604

DK: Ok. So I’ll just introduce myself here. This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing, I’ll put the full name, Queenie Robbie Hall formerly Queenie Robinson.
QH: That’s right.
DK: Yeah, and you were born on the 16th of February 1923.
QH: Correct.
DK: So I’m interviewing Robbie at her home. So, I’ll just make sure this is all working ok. Sort of won’t fall there. I’ll put that down there. So if I, if I’m looking down I’m just making sure this is still going.
QH: Yes.
DK: So if you just speak naturally. What I wanted to ask you for obviously you were born quite a while ago.
QH: [laughs] you can say that again.
DK: So what, what was your life like when you were born in the 1920s and ’30s? What did you do?
QH: What it was like? Well, I was born in a cottage in the country and at that stage the road was just a gravel road and there was no main sewerage, no running water. We had a, it was a semi-detached cottage and there was a standpipe in the front of the house with a little stand thing where you could put a bucket. Mother kept a bucket especially just for fresh water [coughs] excuse me and she and the next-door neighbour shared the water from that tap. Mother then had to take the bucket of water around to the side of the house where the back door was and then she would keep that by the fireside. The cottage had, like most of them black Range Rover [laughs] not a Range Rover.
DK: A range.
QH: A range.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: For cooking and that sort of thing and she had a special what we called a scoop that she would scoop some water out of the bucket to fill the kettle and the kettle was always on the hob. Always singing away sort of thing. And for a bath we had the usual as people did in those days tinned bath in front of the fire.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Bath once a week on a Friday. The young ones for bathed first.
DK: Did you have brothers and sisters then?
QH: Yes. I had. In all I had four brothers and four sisters.
DK: Right.
QH: So in other words my mother had five girls and four boys.
DK: Four boys.
QH: I don’t ever remember the elder boy living with us. He was eleven years older than me. And my mother used to go to the farm on a Friday afternoon to help the farm lady. We were taught to call her Aunt Diaper. Her surname was Mrs Diaper. And so mother used to go on Fridays to help Aunt Diaper churn butter and then on the Saturday Mrs Diaper would get out the pony and trap and she and her husband would come into Stowmarket two and a half miles away to sell about two pounds of butter.
DK: Yeah.
QH: But they were all done in little pats and I think the most there would be the half a pound. Otherwise quarter pound and some even less than that.
DK: So you were born in Stowmarket then were you?
QH: Stowupland.
DK: Where?
QH: Stowupland.
DK: Stowupland.
QH: Yeah.
DK: Oh sorry. Stowupland. Whereabouts is that?
QH: About two and a half miles down the road from Stowmarket.
DK: Oh, ok. Ok. So quite local. You’ve always been in the area then.
QH: Oh, yes. Yes. And my eldest brother wouldn’t come home at one stage. He was only about four and so if anything to cut a long story short he never lived with us while before I was born.
DK: Right.
QH: And my brother Les was next in line and he was nine years older than me. So I do remember him vaguely. And then I had a sister. She was seven years older than me. I had another sister five years older than me and I had a brother who was nearly three years older than me. Then there was me. I was number six. Then there was my younger brother [coughs] younger brother and I was only seventeen months when he was born. My mother slipped on that. She had one nearly every two years but Bob was two years nine months before I was born. But my younger brother came on a bit early. Made up for the two years. And then after about three years we had my sister Ida and then we moved because we were bursting at the seams. It was only a two-bedroom cottage.
DK: Wow.
QH: I had to sleep in the middle of my two sisters in a four foot six bed and the ceiling sloped down slightly so the beds in those days were metal with brass knobs on.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Mother used to have to bend her head to get around to the foot of the bed to make the bed [laughs] and that sort of thing so yes I was there until we were six and then we moved to a council bungalow at Combs which is the opposite side of Stowmarket.
DK: Right.
QH: It is now incorporated into Stowmarket. You no longer use the word to Combs. Not where we were. And so I was there for quite some while and then my great aunt, a great uncle died and my great aunt came up to see my mother once about six weeks later and she said how lonely she was and that sort of thing so it was a question of having a companion. So I said, ‘Oh, I’ll come auntie.’ So I went for three months and I stayed for two and a half years. Then I got a job and left school at fourteen.
DK: What did your father do? What was —
QH: Oh, my father. Well, he was apprentice to the leather trade —
DK: Right.
QH: As a lad because the school leaving age then was thirteen years old.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And the horses and things were beginning to fade out a bit and when he was nineteen he couldn’t finish his apprenticeship because the company changed direction.
DK: Right.
QH: They were going in for agricultural machinery.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Whereas horses had pulled a combine [cough] sorry about all this.
DK: That’s ok.
QH: They were being replaced by tractors. London taxies had previously been horse drawn so there was no equipment for horses and so father eventually he was employed to see to the belts on the threshing machines.
DK: Right.
QH: Those belts would be at least four inches wide and because of leather being a living thing leather would stretch.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So every now and again father used to have to cut a bit off and stitch because in those days they didn’t have metal staples. It all had to be done by hand and in father’s apprenticeship he learned to stitch soles on shoes by hand and all that sort of thing. So he was what is known he eventually worked in a factory where the machinery was still. So three story building still all these wide leather belts and things.
DK: So, what, what was school like back then? You say you left at fourteen. What was, what was what was your school —
QH: Well —
DK: Days like?
QH: I loved school and I really started school actually at four and a half because I created such a fuss. I was a [unclear] little thing. When my two sisters went to school I used to scream my head off because I wanted to go too. One particular day the teacher sent my sister out to take me back in. I went in school. I’d been there for a half an hour and she said, sent me back with my sister again and I was satisfied I’d been to school. So eventually my birthday being February you see it was an awkward time because these days school year starts in September.
DK: Yes.
QH: In my day we could leave at the end of a term.
DK: Right.
QH: So I left school at the Easter and I was fourteen in the —
DK: So that would have been 1937.
QH: That’s right.
DK: You left school.
QH: That’s it.
DK: Yeah. So what did you do when you left school?
QH: When I first left school I went to help a lady. She had an invalid daughter. Very very, she was bedridden. She’d had meningitis which left her with a curvature of the spine and she couldn’t get out of bed. She wouldn’t go out. She and her brother. The elder sister didn’t get it but it affected his brain and so I helped her with her invalid daughter.
DK: Right.
QH: And then when I was fifteen somebody told me about a job going in Felixstowe at a private school. A girl’s school. Its title was Felixstowe College for Young Ladies, and I worked there from Easter. Yeah. I was fifteen in February and I worked there from the Easter and then that was ’39 and then of course war broke out in September. My brother was now nineteen. My brother Bob that is and he joined the Air Force straightaway. And our school was evacuated so we all moved out to the countryside near Thetford. And then when I was seventeen I decided I’d like to join the WRNS because being at Felixstowe I knew a lot of these. My friend lived in Harwich and her father was captain of the ferry boat. So I often was in Harwich and often mixed with sailors and that sort of thing so I thought I’d like to join the WRNS. But when they sent me the particulars it said things they would need would be a birth certificate.
DK: Right.
QH: Well, my cousin and I were going to do this. My cousin was already seventeen. She’s five years older than me so that knocked that on the head. So we thought about three or four weeks later we applied to the Air Force. At no point did they ask for a birth certificate.
DK: So you would have been seventeen at this time would you?
QH: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Yeah. This was the, by this time it was probably getting on for the end of September and went through the usual rigmarole. They sent me a railway warrant to go to Colchester for a medical. You weren’t allowed to go to your own doctor in case he was biased.
DK: Yeah.
QH: I found my way there. During the war you see all railways stations had what they called an RTO. Now, he was the route officer.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So when you arrived at your station because the Air Force would provide you with a railway warrant. When you arrived at the railway station at the end of your journey you then had to just go around to the RTO.
DK: What did the RTO stand for? Can you remember?
QH: Well, he was the route officer.
DK: Route.
QH: Officer.
DK: Route officer. Right. Ok.
QH: So you went to him and he gave you directions to the Air Force station —
DK: Right.
QH: That you were being —
DK: I see.
QH: You see, most of the time he would ring the Air Force station because your documents showed him where you had to be.
DK: Right.
QH: And I had to go the first time to be assessed and accepted. I had to go to Holborn. Admiralty House.
DK: Admiralty House.
QH: In Holborn.
DK: Yes.
QH: And in those days trains weren’t like they are today. Often a train would be an old train and you just got into the cabin or whatever you would like to call it and there would be six. Three and three. But there was nothing else.
DK: No.
QH: Once you got in there.
DK: No gangway down the side.
QH: That’s right. No gangway. Nothing.
DK: I vaguely remember those carriages.
QH: So when you got in there if you wanted the loo it was tough.
DK: You couldn’t get out. Yeah.
QH: So anyway in the, because the train was full with such troop movements and things and there was three young airmen, well they were Cadets. They looked to be about fifteen and there was one man in charge of them. He looked to me to be about thirty-five and they were talking and then they spoke to me. The man in charge did. I never did know his name and he said, because I told him you see because he asked me where was I going. I said I was going to join the Air Force and of course he was thrilled to bits about that.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So we got chatting and one thing led to another so as we neared to London he said, ‘I’ve had a word with the boys,’ he said, ‘Would you like me to take you to Holborn?’
DK: Ok.
QH: So I said yes because he knew. I told him I’d never seen an escalator. Never seen the underground.
DK: This was your first time in London.
QH: Yes.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
QH: And so he, yes I’d never been to london before so he took me all the way there very kindly. He arranged with his three boys to meet them somewhere later. They were quite happy about that. So he took me to the, the building and he said, ‘Now, as you go down there dear,’ he said, ‘You want the second door on the right.’ I said, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ And that was it sort of thing. Of course we had to be interviewed and so on and so forth and I don’t know if you want me to repeat this scene [laughs] but she asked me to go over to that road over there to give a specimen.
DK: Right.
QH: Well, I didn’t know what a specimen was did I? I was seventeen. I’d lived a fairly sheltered life. I got the shock of my life. God, stone the crows. Anyway, I got through that sort of thing but in the interview she was asking about various different things and I was supposed to take documents. In those days you had a stamp to put on a card every week. Your employer had to do that. You contribute a part and he contributed and I used to —
DK: This was a National Insurance stamp. Yeah.
QH: It was that type of thing.
DK: Yeah. Yes.
QH: I used to go to the Post Office to get sort of quite a few of them.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And stick them on people’s cards.
DK: They are sometimes called the stamp but it was literally a stamp in those days.
QH: It was just a stamp like a postage stamp and so anyway that was alright and my references were alright but when it came to the medical card at the last moment it was about as big as that and up in that corner there was a little tiny bracket. It said hyphen twenty three. And I thought oh my God that’s my date of birth. Twenty three. So I thought well I can’t just leave that one out so I left them all out. She asked for my documents and I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I came out in such a hurry in the end,’ I said, ‘I was running late,’ I said, ‘And it was half a mile to the nearest Railway Station.’ I said, ‘And I’d got to take my suitcase and this, that and the other and I’m afraid they are still on the kitchen table.’ She said, ‘You are eighteen aren’t you?’ So I said, ‘Oh yes. I’ll be nineteen in February.’ She gave me a funny old look. She didn’t believe me but she accepted me.
DK: Yeah.
QH: They wanted somebody. But she put me down as M&K and I said, ‘What’s that?’ That was mess and kitchen. I said, ‘Well, I wanted to be a telephonist.’ She said, ‘Well, you don’t know anything about a telephonist.’ I said, ‘Yes I do.’ At the school we had a small sort of puny internal thing you know. I mean if the headmistress rang through a little thing came down saying extension three and if you wanted somebody else alright you plugged it in there and then you had to turn a handle to ring the other side.
DK: So you told—
QH: It was very basic.
DK: Yeah, you see you told her that you did have a little bit of experience.
QH: That’s right and I explained what it was but anyway she said, ‘Well, if you want to be a telephonist,’ she said, ‘You’ll have to go back home and wait until we are recruiting.’ She said, ‘Today we are recruiting M&K.’ Well, I didn’t want to go home so I said, ‘Oh, alright then. I’ll accept it.’ And my brother told me that, when I spoke to him about it later he said, ‘Once you are in,’ he said, ‘You can always re-muster.’
DK: Right.
QH: So that is what I did. So anyway, first of all I was put on the half past four train. On a big old lorry to catch the half past four train to go up north. I was posted up to Harrogate. To get into this lorry there was a step about this high of the ground. Then you just grabbed the side of the lorry. It was a canvas hood. Of course, at that time of day everybody was wearing pencil skirts and my sister said to me, ‘Why don’t you wear my outfit?’ She said, ‘It’ll make you look older.’ Fat lot of good it did me. Anyway, trying to get we were all the same. We were all hiking up our skirts to get on this support here and hauling ourselves up into this truck. We had a form either side but they weren’t fastened so when those lorries swung around a corner they all fell off [laughs] off the stool. So I stood up and I did what some of the others I hung on to the, one of the supports that kept the canvas up.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Anyway, we got the half past four train and we landed in Harrogate about nine, half past nine.
DK: Yeah. Actually going back to the trucks I have seen photographs of them holding on to the support.
QH: That’s right. That’s it.
DK: That why they are doing it. So they don’t fall over.
QH: That’s it. That’s it.
DK: Yeah.
QH: If only they’d screwed the forms to the floor or somewhere.
DK: Yeah.
QH: We’d have been alright. So anyway, we got ourselves kitted out. We were given our numbers and all that sort of thing and we had to put all our civilian stuff in our suitcase and label it and then the Air Ministry sent it back. It was delivered to my mother. The station delivered it to my mother.
DK: Ok.
QH: So that was the pattern at that time. Then after five days we’d been issued with all your kit and that sort of thing including two uniforms and of course they weren’t prepared for girls. We were given them in, we were given a hairbrush that was a man’s style of hairbrush. We were given a ground sheet. A funny great heavy thing that was and we were given shoe brushes that were being issued to the men. We were given what was it? [pause] something else that was men’s. Oh the kit bag.
DK: Right.
QH: You know the kit bag was just this calico type of thing. Just sort of a sausage shall we say. Well, the only way you could carry that was up on your shoulders because that was the men’s thing. As I said they weren’t ready for women. So we went lumbering off then to what had been a private boy’s school on the Moors somewhere. The school I know was called Pannal Ash but where we actually were on the Moors I don’t know and there was no such thing as a parade ground or anything. We just were taught how to get lined up, taught how to salute and that sort of thing. Then we used to march across the Moors. That sort of thing. That was our actual training. We only had a fortnight’s training and then we came home. Went to our postings.
DK: How did you find that initially in the, in the Air Force? Was it something you liked and you took too?
QH: Oh yes. I loved it.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Oh yes. I’d have stayed M&K if they wouldn’t have let me re-muster.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Just to be there. And I spent Christmas there. I was accepted on the 13th of December 1940.
DK: Right.
QH: So I spent Christmas in Harrogate and then, in Pannal Ash and then on the 27th of December I was posted down to High Wycombe you see.
DK: Right.
QH: Of course that was from Bomber Command Headquarters.
DK: Sorry, when did you, when were you posted to High Wycombe?
QH: 27th of December 1940.
DK: 27th of December 1940. Right. Ok.
QH: And then we had a wonderful billet because being headquarters there were no sort of planes, runways. Nothing like that. Just buildings and prior to that they built houses rather like a housing estate. Quite separate.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And they were all built for officers and I think I’m right in saying but I’m not a hundred percent but I was told it was for squadron leaders upwards.
DK: Right.
QH: And I was posted to House 8 and you had this great big long drive before you came to any houses at all and I had a room to myself at that first few months and we had, it was four bedrooms and then there was another flight of stairs led up to one bedroom. That we were told was for the batman because the group captain who was going to have my house they never ever lived in them. None of the officers ever lived in them.
DK: Oh.
QH: Because they had a habit of building houses and then leaving them for a certain number of months before they were occupied.
DK: Right.
QH: That was all to do with drying out the plaster or something. So anyway, brand new house. We had two bathrooms. It was centrally heated and the main bathroom which would have been the group captains’ that had a heated towel rail. It didn’t have a shower. People didn’t have showers in the 1940s and that sort of thing. Then the smaller bathroom was next door to it. It had a towel rail but it wasn’t heated and it was the smaller bathroom and that was for the, well the batman I suppose or anybody else but the main one was a lovely bathroom. And we had one girl in our room. I moved out of House 8 after about six months. I re-mustered. Became a clerk. And the —
DK: Before you, before you re-mustered what were you doing for those eight months?
QH: Well, I was working in the kitchen.
DK: Right. In the kitchen.
QH: When I say I was working in the kitchen there was a cook.
DK: Right.
QH: And we had an aga stove and she did all the cooking. As far as I can remember she did all the washing up.
DK: Right.
QH: I used to look after the dining room and there was a door from the, you came into the kitchen that way. No. There was a door that way and that led into a great big wide hall. But I used to go in there and I used to have to wipe down the tables because people had spilled salt or whatever, bits and pieces. That was no problem. That was one pine table and we had benches. A bench I think I’m right in saying was fitted to the table rather like these days picnic tables.
DK: So it wasn’t a dining room for senior officers then.
QH: It would have been.
DK: It would have been.
QH: Well, it would have been for the officer’s family I suppose.
DK: Oh ok.
QH: Might not have been there at all. That may have been put in for us. I don’t know.
DK: Right. So who —
QH: I was a bit —
DK: So who was dining there when you were there.
QH: Just WAAFs.
DK: Just WAAFs.
QH: Oh yes.
DK: Ok.
QH: The house was taken over by WAAFs.
DK: Ok.
QH: When I first went there in December I never saw a soul in that house.
DK: Oh right.
QH: But they gradually filled up. In the end they got more people from the Signals Section which meant they were on shift work and had to sometimes sleep during the day and where my house was that was the nearest to the woods. In fact, they’d still got heaps of wood about, soil about the place when they’d dug out the footings. My house was the last one to be built I was told and so straight outside there was the woods. Wonderful. And a fantastic billet. At night there would be four or five of us would gather into the kitchen, stand around the aga and we introduced ourselves that particular night. We’d been there two or three weeks and that’s when I began to hate my given Christian name.
DK: Right.
QH: Because although it was popular in ’23 by 1940 it was considered old hat and one girl she told, she was twenty one, told us she was a debutante but hadn’t found a husband. That’s what [laughs] that’s what it was all about. And when I said my name was Queenie she sneered. She, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘We had a dog called Queenie.’
DK: Oh dear.
QH: So another one, she was twenty six she told us and I can’t remember her name.
DK: Yeah.
QH: She was a tall slim person and she said, ‘Well, we used to play a board game called Queenie.’ So I said, ‘Yes, so did I.’ I’m with Queenie sort of thing and everywhere I go people will say to me, ‘Is that your real name or is that a nickname?’ Even at the hospital. She’s got all my documents. About five years ago there was a new girl on the scanning machine and she said, I told her my name, ‘Have you got another name?’ I said, ‘Yes. Evelyn.’ So she said, ‘Oh, well is Queenie your proper name?’ So I said, 'Yes.’
DK: So people are still querying it.
QH: Yeah. She said, ‘It’s not a nickname then.’
DK: No.
QH: I said, ‘No. On my birth certificate it says Queenie Evelyn Robinson.’ By which time I was being called Robbie anyway.
DK: Yeah. So that’s how you became Robbie then.
QH: That’s right. I picked that up. Everybody in the Air Force was given a nickname.
DK: Yeah.
QH: If they could.
DK: Yeah.
QH: If you were white you were Chalkie.
DK: Yeah.
QH: If you were tall and slim you were Stalky. If you were Abbott you were Bunny and if your name was Warren. We had one man in charge of our office. His name was something Warren but he was known as Bunny.
DK: Bunny. Yeah.
QH: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So anyway —
DK: So you re-mustered then as a —
QH: Yes, I became a clerk.
DK: Oh ok.
QH: And then, yeah I mean M&K wasn’t hard work. I don’t think I did very much. I don’t remember. I remember doing the dining room and I had to sweep the floor and that sort of thing and I had to polish the hall and I must have done something in the anteroom. That was the lounge. I don’t know what I did. But anyway, so yes I re-mustered and I was put into, my lady CO called me in and she said there was a job going in Command Accounts. Was I interested? And I said oh yes I was and you see Command Accounts was nothing to do with the running of the Air Force. You know, I mean there was an Accounts Section and they paid your wages and things.
DK: Yeah.
QH: But they were totally separate to where I worked. I worked in Command Accounts and we had five officers there. We had a pilot officer, flying officer, flight lieutenant. He was French. A squadron leader and group captain. The group captain was Harris. I remember his name because he was very familiar. He eventually became Bomber Harris and the flight lieutenant I remember he was French and he was called Flight Lieutenant [le Dieux?] The flying, now the pilot officer was a graduate from Oxford and when we had an argument in the office about controversy or controversy I said, ‘Well, I’ll go and ask him.’ I said, ‘He is an English graduate.’ So I went down the corridor and asked him. I might as well have saved my breath because he said, well actually he said, ‘If it’s a three syllable word,’ he said, ‘The uses is on the middle bit.’
DK: Oh ok.
QH: He said, ‘If it’s the second, only two syllables,’ he said, ‘We always say Belfast,’ he said, ‘But it’s wrong.’ He said, ‘It should be Belfast.’
DK: Right.
QH: So that was my English lesson. So anyway beyond us there at Headquarters was Codes and Cypher but I didn’t go down that end of the corridor. Everything was so secret. We had to sign the Secrets Act. We weren’t allowed to talk about it in the office. I only know of one particular case and the officers was so appalled by it that did get out into the main office and we did discuss it too. But otherwise the officer would just ring because eventually I became in charge of the office there and the officer would ring through to where I sat. It was the only telephone in the room. Anyway, and he’d did say, ‘Send me in a typist please.’ You were never a secretary in those days. People were shorthand typists. So I’d say to the girls, ‘Who has got the least work?’ And somebody would say, ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve only got — ’ so many more letters to do. And they would perhaps go in to the group captain. I’d get a call the next day from the squadron leader, ‘Can I have a typist please?’ And the same girl who went to the group captain was with the squadron leader. They didn’t do the same every time. In other words the group captain never asked for anybody by name so that they [pause] neither could connect.
DK: Ok. Yeah.
QH: The information that he was dictating.
DK: Right. Yeah.
QH: So I used to try to vary it that the same officer didn’t get the same typist twice running sort of thing.
DK: So one person then couldn’t pick up on what was going on.
QH: No. That’s right.
DK: What was involved.
QH: That was the whole idea.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: And the only time now and again if it was a very important and secret instruction going out because mainly that’s what we were doing. Instructing. I used to have to check with the typist to make sure that she had got no mistakes. So she would read from her notes and I would hold her typewritten letter and check that what she was saying followed on. Now and again you’d find a girl may have missed TAT.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Or AEN because they were reading you see. When you were getting down to top speed you sort of, you start off doing this and that sort of thing then you [unclear] and then you’d get a great big long thing and you had got to know what the heck it is.
DK: After all these years are you able to say what some of the communications were about? Or —
QH: So now and again I’d have to sit there with her and she would read from her notes and I would check her typing.
DK: Right.
QH: Once that was done that was ok.
DK: And what were the notes about? Are you able to say?
QH: No. No. But there was one case I did. We did as I say we did know and that was because I don’t know the plane I was never told that but a plane had come down in Haverhill. Somewhere in the countryside near this was Haverhill because I was very tempted to say to the group captain, ‘That’s Haverhill. That’s what the local people call it. Haverhill.’ It was only after the war it’s become Haverhill. Same as Waddisham. We always called it Waddisham but the Yanks called it Waddi-sham. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.
DK: So the communications then were about ongoing incidents.
QH: That’s right.
DK: In, in the Command.
QH: And this particular one this plane had come down and it had done quite a bit of damage to the buildings. It had killed two cows and it had killed the farmer’s daughter and the farmer had written in because they were compensated you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: The farmer had written in and I saw the letter and he said that his wife had died about six or eight months earlier from cancer and the daughter had had to take on her work as well as her own. She was getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to milk the cows and she also had to do all the housework and the laundry, the cleaning and he said that she did the work of two men because she had got two jobs. She had got her own and her mothers. And various buildings were damaged but I don’t know the rest of it. All I know is that what had upset the men because what he claimed for his daughter bearing in mind she worked like two men. She had lost her mother earlier. She had lost two cows. Well, not she but the farmer had. Damage to the cowshed and other buildings but for his daughter, for her life he asked for thirty pounds and they just could not believe it. That poor soul you know. What they finally offered him I do not know. I wasn’t allowed to know that bit but I do know it was compensation to the farmer for war damage.
DK: Right.
QH: As far as I could gather that was what it was all about in Command Accounts.
DK: Right.
QH: And if you had a plane come down on your farm or anywhere you went, you contacted your nearest RAF station and they would sort of handle it to start with. They would get it to a certain point and then they would hand it over to Command Accounts.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And I don’t know whether they gave out the money or whether it was once they were all complete and everyone was agreeable I think it may well have gone up to Air Ministry Headquarters. I don’t know.
DK: Air Ministry. Air Ministry Headquarters.
QH: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Yes.
DK: I imagine it probably would.
QH: Yes. So basically I would say that where I worked we were doing more like an insurance company really, you know. We were paying out compensation.
DK: Was there, was there many accidents then that you came across of aircraft —
QH: Well, I don’t know because I wasn’t allowed to know.
DK: Yeah.
QH: You see. I mean one girl would start it so she would know a bit of it but then somebody else would do another bit. Somebody else knew another bit.
DK: So you never knew the full story.
QH: No. No. Never knew the full story. No. There would have been a lot of surmising but we didn’t talk about it in the office.
DK: Yeah.
QH: We had instruction not to discuss it so we didn’t. Being in the Air Force you did what you were told.
DK: Yeah. Did you, did you get to meet any of the senior officers there at Bomber Command Headquarters?
QH: Well, when you say that I worked for four officers, five officers and I know that for a fact that you would never have heard of him probably but he became known as Dickie Murdoch. He was Flight Lieutenant Murdoch. He worked in Signals Section and he used to after the war he had a TV programme or a radio programme with Arthur Askey.
DK: Oh ok.
QH: They were like Morecambe and Wise.
DK: Yeah.
QH: They were a duo.
DK: Oh ok.
QH: Because he learned like King Charles. Going to Cambridge they have the Footlights or something at Cambridge University.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: And that sort of thing so he was in there. I met him and while he was there a girl in our, in our bedroom she worked there too. She was a dogsbody fetching and carrying that sort of thing and she told us that Dickie Murdoch was going to have his baby christened, the baby wasn’t very old in the next village on that Sunday. So four or five of us we went down there and we stayed on the other side of the road about twenty five yards up the road but we saw them all come out of the church. All the ladies in their fancy hats and things. It was quite good sort of thing. But I never personally spoke to him because he wasn’t in my section.
DK: Yeah.
QH: He was in Signals which was an entirely different area and that sort of thing.
DK: You never got to see the bunker at High Wycombe then.
QH: Sorry?
DK: You never go to see the bunker.
QH: No. No. Nothing like that. I don’t know if there even was. Well, I suppose there was one there. But they did have, I could get from one place to another underground.
DK: Right.
QH: And the first time I had to take a message somewhere I can’t remember where now I went down steps to the tunnels and I was going along there. Quite a long tunnel quite sort of you know just head room and I heard a heck of a noise going on. Oh my God whatever is that? It frightened the life out of me. As it got nearer it got louder and louder. Then presently it went whizzing past me and it was one of these messages you put in little capsules.
DK: Oh yes.
QH: Pressure. Pressure tubes.
DK: It went down on a tube.
QH: That’s right.
DK: Down a tube. Yes. Yes.
QH: That’s what was going all around. Anyway, later on I’m not sure if it was late Autumn time ’41 or whether it would Spring ’42 I can’t remember which. I know it was mild enough. We didn’t need a greatcoat on and I was one of those chosen to be lined up for the King to inspect.
DK: Ok.
DK: That was King George the Sixth and there’s a tale there because we were told, even the warrant officer came and polished up my shoes. He said they weren’t polished enough. He couldn’t get a shine either. They were that sort of leather. Anyway, we were all smartly lined up. There was men first and then us women and we were told on no account were we to look at the King. ‘Keep your eyes on the middle distance.’ ‘Yes sir.’ We stood back like that. And I could hear one or two so I looked up and oh yes there was the King coming dressed in RAF uniform inspecting the men and then I took my eyes of him because over there I mean the width of the road shall we say there was the Queen, Queen Elizabeth as she was then with her edge to edge very pale powder blue jacket. Halo hat to match. But she’d got the most gorgeous pair of shoes. Bearing in mind there was my in my old clodhopper lace ups. I can’t get a shine on them. And they looked to me, to start off they looked like velvet to me. They were actually suede, dyed to match her outfit and on her instep she had got a little tiny plaster about an inch square under her tights, well they weren’t tights they would have been silk stockings originally. I could see that and I was fascinated by this. She must, she must have had a slight accident. And then behind her came the Princess Elizabeth. She also was in a blue, but a little darker in Harris tweed, a pleated skirt and jacket and a beret to match. All to match. Behind her came Margaret in the same outfit and they had got, whereas the Queen had got very very dainty little shoes and ankles the princesses both wore flat half an inch shoes. She would only have been fifteen. Snakeskin grey and I’ve never seen anything so horrible in all my life. They looked to be about three sizes, they seemed to go on forever because they were flat. They looked about three sizes too big. Anyway, I suddenly realised somebody was standing in front of me. So I went oh my God. It was the King so I very quickly looked into the middle distance. He stood there for a few seconds and then I sensed him moving on to the next girl so I thought I’d have a look [laughs] So, I took my eyes off the middle distance and had a look at the King and he was stood there in front of this, my next door neighbour girl but he was looking at me and his eyes honestly I don’t know how he didn’t burst out laughing. His eyes were absolutely twinkling. He was tickled to death because he knew damned well I wasn’t supposed to be looking at him. But I did. I thought to myself well I’ve never met the king before I’m going to have a look sort of thing.
DK: I think you’re entitled to have a quick peek.
QH: Yeah. Anyway, he eventually moved on to the next girl and he stood there but [unclear] now and I wouldn’t have thought twice at the time. But had it been somebody sort of full of their damned selves they would have reported that I hadn’t been obeying instructions.
DK: Yeah.
QH: But being the King he had got a marvellous sense of humour.
DK: When the King came was the Commander in Chief of Bomber Command with the King? Can you remember?
QH: Well, I don’t know who they were. There was four other men but no, I don’t know who they were. No idea.
DK: At the time you were there there was two CinCs. There was Richard Peirse and then Arthur Harris.
QH: Yeah.
DK: So did you ever see any of those two?
QH: Well, I worked for a Group Captain Harris. Whether his name was Arthur or not I don’t know.
DK: Right.
QH: But he would, he looked very much like the man but he was in charge of our office he was.
DK: Right.
QH: And he looked very much like Bomber Command Bomber Harris. He’d got that thin sort of lightly gingerish hair and that sort of thing.
DK: Ok.
QH: I don’t know. I wasn’t privileged to that much. They didn’t tell me. I was only a blinking erk.
DK: So what, what was your impressions then of Bomber Command Headquarters?
QH: Well, I thought it was fantastic. I would never left had it not been for my boyfriend.
DK: Right.
QH: But he was training to be aircrew and he was getting six weeks, leave every six weeks.
DK: Right. So where did you meet him then?
QH: I met him at Felixstowe when I was fifteen.
DK: Oh ok.
QH: Yeah, and he was only two and a half months older than me and we went out.
DK: That’s Frank. Frank —
QH: Frank Vincent.
DK: Frank Vincent.
QH: Yeah.
DK: Frank Vincent.
QH: That’s it.
DK: Yes.
QH: Yeah. And he was named after his Uncle Frank who incidentally was killed at the Pegasus Bridge.
DK: Right.
QH: First out of the glider. First to take a bullet. And his name his second name was after his father. But yes, Frank —
DK: Just for the recording that’s Frank Arthur.
QH: That’s it.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
QH: That’s it. And he got leave every six weeks. I got leave every twelve weeks you see so I asked for what was known as a compassionate posting and you could get anything if they were aircrew.
DK: Right.
QH: So he said, I went to the group captain because I knew him well enough working for him you see, and I said to him that I would like to have a posting blah blah blah and he was very very kind. A very very kind man he was too me and he said, ‘Well, I can’t help you.’ He said, ‘But what I will do,’ he said, ‘I will contact your lady CO.’ He said, ‘She will help.’ So I spoke and my lady CO said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to request a particular posting.’
DK: Right.
QH: She said, ‘But what I can do,’ she said, ‘If you can tell me the stations near where your fiancé lives,’ because by that time we were engaged to be married.
DK: Ok.
QH: She said, ‘I’ll write to them and if somebody is willing to exchange with you then yes it can go through.’ So she wrote to five different air stations and there was a girl at Martlesham Heath which was near Ipswich.
DK: Yes.
QH: And she was from London and she was desperately wanting to get back to London.
DK: Ok.
QH: You see from High Wycombe you could get trains either into Paddington or Marylebone.
DK: Yes.
QH: And it was only about half an hour’s journey. So of course it would be marvellous for her. So I never saw her.
DK: Yeah.
QH: She came and I went the same day.
DK: Ok.
QH: So —
DK: So, I’m just looking because Frank was based at —
QH: Oh, he was at several places. It was Mepal when he flew.
DK: Mepal. Yeah. So I’m just looking here. He was with 75 New Zealand Squadron.
QH: That’s right. That’s right. The pilots were New Zealand.
DK: Right. I’m just going to read this because you mention Felixstowe. So he was, it says here the son of Arthur Edward and Muriel Ada Vincent of Felixstowe, Suffolk.
QH: That’s it.
DK: So, that’s why you wanted to get to Felixstowe.
QH: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
QH: That’s right.
DK: And he was, can you remember the other places he was based at?
QH: Well only—
DK: Other than Mepal.
QH: Once he was trained he was always at Mepal.
DK: Mepal. Yeah.
QH: But while he was being trained he spent six weeks at Stratford on Avon. That was where the photograph of him was taken.
DK: Right.
QH: Because they’d been issued that day with their flying kit and all the boys got dressed up in their flying kit to see if it fit and that sort of thing. The only thing he wouldn’t wear was the helmet and they all went. They were at Stratford on Avon and they all went up to some building where they had got a flat roof.
DK: Right.
QH: And they all in turn went up onto this flat roof to have their photograph taken.
DK: Has that, has that photograph been copied for the IBCC?
QH: Well, it’s been copied several times.
DK: Yeah. You have. Yeah. So the IBCC have it. So I’m just reading here he was a bomb aimer then.
QH: That’s right.
DK: A bomb aimer. Yeah.
QH: And he said to me one evening when he came home on leave and I was holding his arm this way, we were just coming out. We were going to go for a walk. It was a nice summer’s evening and he, I was holding his arm and he put his other arm up like this and he said, ‘See that thumb?’ He waggled it like that about that height and I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘That’s killed women and children.’ And he never could accept that. It affected him very badly and so I said, ‘Well, don’t think about it now, dear.’ I said, ‘You’re on leave.’ I said, ‘Try and forget about it.’ I said, ‘It’s a nice evening.’ That sort of thing. Probably if I had more sense and was older I might have been able to react differently but I just didn’t know how to.
DK: No.
QH: How to say what or what to say sort of thing you know. So that was a bit —
DK: So you said you met when you were fifteen.
QH: Yeah. He was apprentice to a [pause] well these days they’re hot boiler engineers or central heating engineers but in those days it was hot water engineer. He would have been working as a plumber.
DK: Right.
QH: His apprenticeship I think I’m right in saying was for seven years. Yes. Because he would have been twenty one he told me. So during the war if you had an apprenticeship to start with, it probably got altered later on but at the beginning of the war if you had an apprenticeship you could stay in it until you finished it. But you couldn’t during. Once war had started you couldn’t then apply for an apprenticeship to keep yourself out of the war.
DK: Right.
QH: So Frank needn’t have joined up until he was twenty one.
DK: Did he join the Air Force before you?
QH: No. No. He had to get out of his apprenticeship.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: To start with.
DK: And then he joined.
QH: And not only that. He had to be eighteen.
DK: Right. Oh right. Ok.
QH: Well, by the time I went into the forces I started about September. He was still seventeen but his birthday was November. November the 30th ‘22. So by the time I went as called up eventually it was December so by that time he would actually have been just eighteen but he had to get out and I think, I’m not a hundred percent certain but I think it could have been something like March by the time he was actually in the Air Force. But yes I was in first.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember where he trained?
QH: Well, I know when he had to learn how to jump out of a plane he was up in Lossiemouth.
DK: Right.
QH: Because I was in hospital at that time and couldn’t understand why I’d had no mail from him for about ten days and then he turned up at my hospital and he said that when he landed it was so windy he said they said afterwards that they should never have been parachute jumping. The wind blew him into a tree and the thing went straight through his cheek to the other side so he was ten days in sick bay and that’s why. He was sent home on convalescence and that sort of thing. So that was Lossiemouth. He was in Stratford Upon Avon when he was given his kit. What he did there I don’t know. It was all part of his training.
DK: That sounds like it would have been with the OTU there. The Operational Training Unit.
QH: It could have been.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Yeah. And then he was somewhere. I can’t remember where it was. He met the Duke of Kent. That was just before the Duke of Kent was killed. The Duke of Kent was killed in ’42 I think you’ll find. The King’s brother.
DK: Yes. Yes.
QH: And I can’t remember where Frank was stationed at that time and then I know when his training was getting, possibly when it was finished I don’t know he was sent out to South Africa.
DK: Right.
QH: He was sent to a place called East London. It’s on the east coast. The lower half of the continent and he was out there for several months and he got to not just him several others and he sent me a photograph of him riding a horse with a couple of black men. There was five of them on horses and he said that he’d learned to ride a horse [laughs] But that was sort of recuperation or whatever from all the training.
DK: Yeah.
QH: The studying and that sort of thing that he’d had to go through for two years before he got actually flying duties. Yeah.
DK: Do you know how many operations he actually flew in?
QH: Yes. He was on his twenty third.
DK: On his twenty third.
QH: And he had got to do thirty and it was his twenty third and I, what I didn’t know was and I knew you had to have your next of kin and your somebody else to be notified.
DK: Right.
QH: And he had put my name down which I didn’t know about.
DK: Ok.
QH: So when he was shot down over Germany I got a signal from the Air Ministry saying that his, his plane was N for Nan and they told me that aircraft N for Nan had failed to return.
DK: Right.
QH: His mother or father got the telegram in the old days. That’s what they did. They telegrammed the nearest Post Office then a boy on a bicycle came out to hand you the brown envelope.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So I actually knew before they did.
DK: Did you?
QH: Yeah.
DK: That must have been quite dreadful for you.
QH: Well, it was and I was by that time, was I [pause] no I wasn’t. No. We were still billeted there. So anyway the man in the accounts well my friend who lived also in Felixstowe was Dulcie. She worked in the accounts where they paid the wages so her boss said, ‘Well, you had better take your friend home.’ So we got on on our bicycles in the middle of the afternoon and we then had to cycle nine miles to Felixstowe and Pauline, that’s his sister not knowing that I had been notified either she got a taxi to come out and we obviously would have passed her but we didn’t realise because when we got about a mile, a mile and a half down the road the accountant came along in the car and he stopped and he said, ‘I’ll take you.’ Because at that time I was a corporal. ‘I’ll take you corporal,’ he said and, ‘Your friend Dulcie—' [pause] I can’t remember her last name now but anyway he called her by her surname.
DK: Yeah.
QH: ‘She will take your bicycle back.’
DK: Right.
QH: So poor old Dulcie she stood about five foot two. She’d got two bleeding bikes she’d got to take back one on either side. She’d got to walk back to camp with them and so the accountant took me home. But on the back way from Martlesham Heath to Felixstowe was nine miles.
DK: Right.
QH: Otherwise you’d have to go six or seven miles and another all the way back. So that’s what we did and of course it wasn’t a very happy time.
DK: No. Just, just for the benefit of the recording then Frank was lost on the 25th of August 1944.
QH: Yeah. 25/26.
DK: And he was in Lancaster LM593 and its AA N for Nan.
QH: That’s it.
DK: As you said. Yeah.
QH: I don’t remember the number but it was N for Nan.
DK: Yeah. LM593 it says here. And it was so he flew from Mepal.
QH: Mepal.
DK: Mepal. Mepal is it? Mepal. Sorry. Mepal.
QH: Well, that’s what he called it. Mepal.
DK: Mepal. Yeah, and it was a raid to Russelsheim.
QH: Sorry?
DK: Russelsheim was the operation.
QH: Oh, was it? Oh.
DK: Yeah. And his pilot was [pause] would that have been Dale.
QH: I don’t know. All I know was he did tell me at one point.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
QH: But one of the pilots from the original got changed over but you see when I saw the war memorial with my name on it there was five of them close together. That’s what they used to do you see if they were all in the same plane. But the pilots I knew they were New Zealanders. They weren’t there. So I don’t know what happened to them.
DK: Ok.
QH: They might have been [pause] well I don’t know. I don’t know.
DK: Did you visit his grave then there?
QH: Well, I’ve never seen it before.
DK: Right.
QH: In 1945 the war finished. 1946 just after the war the British Legion were helping people out there to see the graves.
DK: Right.
QH: And they said, ‘Well, we’ll pay for you.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I can’t stand it.’ I couldn’t. I couldn’t see that. So anyway they came back with photographs and the gravestone they showed me had got four names. Frank’s and three others.
DK: Ok.
QH: And I said, ‘Well, was there anything of these boys there?’ Because they’d been, I’ve since learned the plane blew up in mid-air. There wouldn’t be very much of anybody left would there?
DK: No.
QH: And they told me when I went to Coningsby [pause] when did I go to Coningsby? It must have been March. It must have been March. Recently.
DK: Right. March last year.
QH: Last year. It might have been.
DK: Right.
QH: No. It wouldn’t have been last. March last year. I’ll have to look.
DK: Yeah.
QH: It’s not long ago and the Coningsby [pause] yes that’s right. We had a tour around and that sort of thing and they’d got a Spitfire there and a Lancaster and they knew I’d, my fiancé was in the Lancaster so they took us over there, a few of us and I told this man who was showing us around. I said about Frank waving his [unclear] He said, ‘Oh, he was a bomb aimer then.’
DK: Yeah.
QH: So I said, ‘Oh yes.’ So he said, ‘Well, this is where your Frank would have been,’ he said. And it, I never knew because Frank had never said but what it appears he was virtually laying on the bombs. He said, ‘This is the most vulnerable part of the plane to be.’
DK: They were up in the front there weren’t they?
QH: And he had to lay on his stomach.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And the bombs were immediately under him. He said there was only a bit of steel separating the two and somebody I think would have been the front gunner or somebody was in another tier just above Frank and he had somewhere to sit. Frank didn’t. He had to lay on his stomach all the time. Shook me rigid. I didn’t know that until that was Coningsby.
DK: So, you have been out to his grave since.
QH: So anyway last September we went to the Netherlands again. I’ve been the last two years. I’ve been going twice a year.
DK: Right.
QH: And in the May one I was just talking to somebody on the ship coming back, sat next to me and had a chat and that sort of thing and he said, ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘That you lost your fiancé.’ So I said yes. He said, ‘What was his name?’ So we discussed this and all the while he sits there on his smart phone and so he said oh he said he’s so and so. Whoever that was and that sort of thing. He said, ‘Have you ever seen it?’ So I said no. He said it’s somewhere in Germany. I don’t know where. So he said, ‘Well, would you like to see it?’ So, I said, ‘Well, yeah but —’ I said, ‘I’m not going to Germany.’ I just left it at that. The next thing I knew when we went to the Netherlands in September he came up to me and said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Do you want a trip out Robbie to see your fiancé’s memorial?’ So I said, ‘Cameron,’ I said, ‘It’s in Germany.’ He said, ‘Oh yes. We’re not far from Germany here.’ So he said, ‘It’s only about an hour’s ride.’ So Dean one of the taxi drivers he said, ‘In fact, Robbie,’ he said, ‘It’s fifty seven minutes. That’s all it is.’ He said, ‘I’ll take you.’ So I said, ‘Well, it seems a long —’ No,’ he said, ‘I don’t mind.’ He said, ‘I’ll take you.’ And there was another man called Don he comes from Frinton on Sea and the same lad who was looking after him in the wheelchair was talking to me and Don wanted to go because he didn’t know the person personally but he knew the son and the son had told him where to find his father. So the four of us we all piled in. Kes came with me and Calum took Don and Dean drove us you see. So we all went to this cemetery.
DK: Was that the Rheinberg Cemetery.
QH: Well —
DK: Rheinberg.
QH: All I know it’s in Germany.
DK: Ok. It is the Rheinberg War Cemetery.
QH: And it’s international. No, Commonwealth.
DK: Commonwealth. Commonwealth War Graves.
QH: Yeah. So, anyway Cameron again got out his smart phone and he told us what number and that sort of thing and what row. That sort of thing. So we just went straight to it you know. That’s when I saw my name on it. I broke down a bit.
DK: Yeah.
QH: It upset me because it said in loving memory or something like that. In loving memory of our darling Frank. Mum, dad and sister. It didn’t say Pauline. And sister and Queenie.
DK: Yeah.
QH: You see. They always called me Queenie because they’d known me before the war.
DK: So this was September 2025 you went there.
QH: That’s right.
DK: For the first time.
QH: That was the first time I’d seen it. Yeah. The first time I knew about it really because when the photograph was taken by the War Graves Commission.
DK: You couldn’t see the memorial.
QH: I’m sure it was a different one.
DK: Oh. Ok.
QH: In this one Frank was on his own. The five of them each had their own headstone.
DK: Right.
QH: You see. But no [pause] there should have been seven you see. Well, it was the two pilots.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So I don’t know what happened to their memorial.
DK: Probably can check where they were buried.
QH: Yeah.
DK: But so that was eighty odd years later. Eighty one years.
QH: Eighty one years. Eighty one years. I could have gone in ’46 but I didn’t have the courage. But I mean I did marry and I was married sixty two and a half years. Totally different. Absolutely different. I married a Cockney Londoner. But anyway that’s another story but yes it was eighty one years and I wouldn’t have seen that if it hadn’t been for the taxi charity. They’ve been so good to me and when we go to Arnhem you see we all pile into these golf buggies and parade around the streets and they all shout out, ‘Thank you. Thank you for our freedom.’ They clap. They throw flowers to you. It’s quite emotional. Especially the first time I did it. I was in tears. But they are very welcoming. When I go this time I’m going on Saturday. We’ll stay overnight Saturday night. I’ve already been invited by, well she is Canadian he is the Dutch one. I thought it was the wrong way around. I’ve been invited to meet Amanda’s parents. They’ve come over from Canada to spend three weeks with her and the daughter has got a fifteenth birthday coming up. There’s that and there might well be the anniversary for the 5th of May. That’s the actual anniversary so I don’t know. It’s already my life will blend out when I get there.
DK: So that’s the Operation Manna isn’t it? The food drops.
QH: That’s it. That’s it. Yes.
DK: So just going back to Felixstowe then you were posted to Felixstowe.
QH: Well —
DK: Yeah? Or —
QH: Yeah. What actually happened you see the Americans took over Martlesham Heath. Now, Martlesham was Fighter Command. You’re not normally allowed to come from one Command to another.
DK: Right.
QH: But Felixstowe had gliders. What did they call them? They took off on ski’s. Something Command. I’ll think of it in a minute. I’m getting too old. My brain’s going. So anyway —
DK: Transport Command was it? Or —
QH: No. No.
DK: Not Fighter Command then.
QH: No. All along the coast. They all had the —
DK: The gliders was it?
QH: No. No. No. They were air buses. Well, not airbuses really but they took off on water.
DK: Oh, Flying Boats.
QH: Yes.
DK: Oh, so this was part of Coastal Command was it? Coastal Command.
QH: That’s it. Coastal Command. That’s what I’m trying to think of. Coastal Command.
DK: Yes. Flying Boats.
QH: Anyway —
DK: Felixstowe is on the coast.
QH: That’s right.
DK: Yes.
QH: That's right. So anyway, we were billeted in Kesgrave Hall. Again I was lucky. That was centrally heated. You could have a bath every night of the week if you liked. That was wonderful. But however the runway was getting finished so more Americans were moving in and they wanted Kesgrave Hall for the Officer’s Mess. So we WAAFs had to clear off out. The Air Ministry had found accommodation in ordinary houses that had been left. Probably been rented houses. They were all three bedroomed bay windowed semi-detached houses and they had a little Ideal stove that would provide hot water and an airmen used to come along with a sack of coal once a week and I don’t know how many people there were. There was five in my room and if you got a bath once a week you raised the flags. You were lucky.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Because the coal only lasted until Wednesday and you might come home and light the fire. By the time the water was hot somebody else had nipped into the bathroom, they had got the hot water. It was only a small little tiny boiler. It wasn’t any good to doing the number of girls in that house and God it was cold. I know one night in the winter I put my stockings on, I put my cardigan on over my pyjamas. I got out and put a balaclava on to keep my head warm. I got out and put my great coat over the blankets. I was frozen to death. There was no heating in it you see. There had been that sort of thing. Cor that was the coldest night I ever slept I think. Especially after being used to centrally heated houses and then ground crew started to come getting ready for the planes and that sort of thing. The runway was now all finished and of course you see our Spitfires had taken off on grass.
DK: Yes.
QH: Spitfires and Hurricanes and the Americans their planes were heavier apparently and they said they would sink into damp soil. So they had to have a runway but now the aircrew had all, the ground crew had all arrived aircrew were due in three weeks’ time and the ground crew wanted our accommodation again. So the CO posted a notice up saying that if we could find lodgings in the village the Air Ministry would pay a subsistence allowance.
DK: Right.
QH: So anyway, Dulcie living in Felixstowe, her parents there we got our heads together and we said we’ll go and see the CO. So we went to the CO and we said, ‘We can’t find accommodation in the village, sir. They have all been taken but Dulcie lives in Felixstowe and my fiancé lives in Felixstowe so can we get billeted there?’ So he said, ‘How are you going to get there?’ So we said, ‘We are going to cycle sir.’ ‘Cycle,’ he said. ‘It’s a long way.’ ‘It’s only nine miles by the back roads, sir.’ So anyway he put a grant approved. He knew it was a work fiddle so then we Dulcie and I used to cycle backwards and forwards nine miles each way each day. So I lived with Frank’s parents and Frank would come home and he had to sleep on the little bunk bed in the little sitting room. A single room full of furniture. But they had just got a put you up bed in there so he had to sleep there and I slept in what had been his bedroom. I got a nice four foot six bed to myself. So anyway that was where I was stationed at Martlesham when Frank was shot down. So of course I went home to Felixstowe to his family and of course they were all in tears. I joined them. That sort of thing. When people say, you know, ‘How did you celebrate the end of the war? Did you go dancing in the street?’ I said, ‘No. We didn’t.’
DK: Yeah.
QH: We didn’t. We weren’t [pause] we didn’t dissolve into tears or anything like that but we didn’t go out.
DK: You obviously didn’t feel —
QH: No.
DK: Feel like celebrating I think.
QH: I mean we were, we were relieved that the war was over.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: And you could have lights on. You didn’t have to go about in the dark and things like that. But so yes —
DK: Were you a clerk again at Felixstowe or were you doing —
QH: I was still doing, I was clerical.
DK: Oh right.
QH: At Martlesham Heath. Yes.
DK: At Martlesham Heath.
QH: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And while I was at Martlesham, Martlesham Heath we were posted or detached really six of us from Martlesham Heath to go to Orford Ness. Now, Orford Ness is an island just off Orford and don’t ask what I did. It would have been clerical work. I’ve got no idea and that was a highly secretive we were told radar station.
DK: Ok.
QH: But I’ve learned since it was not a radar station. It was something even more secret than that and they were experimenting. Trying to do something. But there was no, no living. No people. No population on this island and the only access was by rowing boat. There was a man with a boat and two oars and he could take six girls at a time. Of course, bear in mind there are no lights. It’s always dark and I only went to the mainland twice and all there was there was a pub. It was only a very very bleak —
DK: Bleak.
QH: Bleak billet.
DK: If it wasn’t radar do you know exactly what it was?
QH: Well, we always thought it was but it was all secret stuff.
DK: All very secret.
QH: But the main radar was actually at Bawdsey but however I’ve since learned as a civilian it was not radar at all. It was something —
DK: But you don’t know exactly what it was.
QH: No. No. No. No. Can’t talk about. I was there for six weeks during which time one girl fell in the water. Only the boatman’s quick reaction saved her. She lost her hat. She lost her gas mask and in the gas mask was a paper book that she got into trouble for. And then from there we went back to Martlesham and carried on my work in the office. And then I think it was somewhere like March time I think I was then actually posted to Trimley. Now, Trimley is only four miles from Felixstowe.
DK: Right.
QH: That was highly secret radar and all it was was two big black barns with just a gravel driveway up to it just wide enough for a tractor and every now and again the tractor would be placed by those barns. No cars to be seen except one. You could have one car and that was the COs anyway. But your bicycles all had to be put under cover because to all intents and purposes you’d got wheat ones [pause] no I think it was barley and oats in the other. You’d got two cornfields shall we say and just this track leading up to them. No hot water. No running water. Chemical toilets and things like that.
DK: Did you know what was going on in the barns then or —
QH: Well, all we knew was it was radar.
DK: Radar.
QH: We were told that.
DK: You didn’t know what. Yeah.
QH: But the general public didn’t know that.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And we weren’t allowed to say what it was. If we were asked we would just say, ‘Well, we don’t know. It’s very secret.’ Which it was. We didn’t know. I never went into the other hut. No. I was nothing to do with radar so I never went there. No. We used to have a woman come in at a given time in the morning and she was somebody from the village. She wasn’t in uniform. In fact, she wore an apron like I’m doing and she would come in with I don’t know how she did it, how she brought it but she would bring tea or coffee so we could have a hot drink during the morning and the same in the afternoon. Well, I don’t know about coffee because we weren’t coffee drinkers like that in those days. It was always tea. So we did get a cup of tea and she would then hang around and take them away to clear away and wash them out somewhere else.
DK: I’m rather conscious of time because we’ve talked, we’ve been talking for a while now. At the end of the war when did you actually leave the RAF?
QH: 29th of November ’45.
DK: ’45.
QH: Sixteen more days and it would have been exactly five years.
DK: So you spent five years in the RAF. What, what did you do after that?
QH: Well, they paid me six weeks wages and told me that I was on reserve for a year. So I came home in a uniform plus other bits and pieces and they paid me six weeks so I stayed at home for six weeks and then I applied to a local iron foundry. They’d been on government contracts making bomb trolleys. Of course the contract got cancelled as soon as the war ended.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
QH: But they were still what they were in process they were allowed to finish and I went into the office there and there I worked more on sales than anything because it was a business.
DK: Right.
QH: And they used to make, they finished the bomb trolleys contract. They used to make lawn mowers, mincers for mincing up meat.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Because it was a standard thing. If you had a joint of meat before the war all your leftovers you minced them up and made shepherd’s pie.
DK: Were they the mincers that you left on the table?
QH: Left on the table. Yes.
DK: On the table. Yes.
QH: Yes. And they also had an order for a company called [unclear] That was a French company where we were making steel stands for tennis courts.
DK: Right.
QH: And we had a contract for that. That lasted a couple of years. Anyway, it was my job there to list, you know a great big ledger all the amount of money we were getting on the invoices and that sort of thing. And it was once we had got twenty nine thousand pounds worth of business on this then the girls used to say, ‘How much have we got? How much have we got?’ And we would get a bonus. Why only the office got the bonus don’t ask. I don’t know. The men were doing the dirty old work.
DK: I think, I think we’ve come full circle now to you moving in to your house then.
QH: That’s right.
DK: In the 1950s. You mentioned your brother. Bob was it? He joined the RAF.
QH: Yes.
DK: Do you know what he was doing in the RAF?
QH: Yes. My eldest brother Sid, the one who never ever lived with us when I was little he was, his hobby was first aid. Red Cross. And as a sixteen year old, as a student he joined the Red Cross and he carried on right into adult life and beyond and when you join the Air Force, excuse me you had to put down what your hobbies were.
DK: Right.
QH: So he put down Red Cross so they clobbered him to be a medical.
DK: So he was medical.
QH: So he was medical.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And he was a bit more senior. He wasn’t just a dogsbody. Because of his knowledge of anatomy and all that sort of thing he used to work in a theatre with a surgeon on injuries.
DK: Right.
QH: And that sort of thing. And Bob was next. Les couldn’t go. He wasn’t fit enough. Bob was next and he joined as a wireless operator. That was his hobby. Messing about with radios and after a year or two he re-mustered to a higher grade and was called a wireless operator mechanic.
DK: Right.
QH: He became a [WOM]
DK: So was —
QH: He was in communications. He was involved in the communications at the Yalta Conference.
DK: Oh right. Yalta.
QH: And then my younger —
DK: He was a ground posting then.
QH: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah.
QH: They were all ground.
DK: They were.
QH: They were all ground.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And my younger brother he was an electrician.
DK: Right.
QH: That’s what he was doing before he was —
DK: In the RAF as well.
QH: Yes. All three.
DK: Oh right.
QH: In the RAF.
DK: So one was medical, one was wireless and the other electrician.
QH: That’s right. That’s right.
DK: So your brother did he actually go to Yalta? Was he at the conference?
QH: Well, as far as I know. He said he was involved with all the things that —
DK: Communicating [unclear]
QH: Yes. Yes.
DK: Ok. So, that’s been absolutely wonderful listening to you. Great story. Probably best to wrap it up now because we have been talking for a while. I just want to ask you finally all these years later how do you look back on your time in the RAF? What are you feelings about it now?
QH: I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I loved it. Oh yes. I wanted, once it became five years I decided I’d come out. That was my demob date and I could have gone back at any time but I wanted to wear something a bit lighter than the costume colours. But in reflection I wish I had gone back. Yes. I did. And I wish I’d never left Bomber Command and I wouldn’t have done had it not been that I wanted to be with Frank.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Bomber Command. I loved my job there and it was a bit of kudos. I got to meet VIPs and things like that. You could get to london. I went to London when I think I was still eighteen. I used to go up on the, I was quite hooked on the Underground and escalators and I was walking about and I found myself in Whitehall. I went to Oxford Street, Regent’s Street. Another time I found myself in Piccadilly. I’d read about that and I knew that Eros had been boarded up because of the war and that sort of thing. I stood there. I mean it was a very wide pavement and I stood at the back here and I was mesmerised just watching all these people going around. They were mostly military —
DK: Yes.
QH: Vehicles.
DK: And —
QH: Somebody came up to me and whispered in this ear and I turned and there was a tall slim good-looking girl stood there and she marched off. Presently a car came along with an officer driving it, an Army officer and she got into this car and she turned and as she pulled the door she gave me such a triumphant look. Then it dawned on me what she had said to me, ‘Clear off. This is my pitch.’ So having just deciphered what her message was somebody was whispering in this ear and he said, ‘How much do you charge?’ I said, ‘Pardon?’ He said, ‘ How much do you charge?’ And I looked at him. ‘Oh sorry. Sorry. Sorry.’ He was an ordinary airman and I thought to myself my God woman get yourself out of here.
DK: Oh dear.
QH: So I went somewhere else. I don’t know what road I took from Piccadilly now but I was oh stone the crows I like this job. I’m no prostitute. Oh dear. And also when I was at Bomber Command once my friend wrote and said that her boyfriend was in St Johns Wood convalescing from an operation. Could I meet him because he’s a bit despondent and that sort of thing. Well, I knew him quite well. His name was also Frank. Frank Wheeler. So I arranged to meet him and when I met him he said he’d got two tickets for the Palladium which they often did. If they hadn’t got sold all the seats they would offer them to the forces people.
DK: Right.
QH: So it didn’t cost anything. So we went to this and there was only ever one showing and theatres all had to close at 10 o’clock. So anyway, I had gone up by train and for some reason I was going to go back on the Green Line. Don’t ask me why. I’ve no idea. But I knew the Green Line left london at 10 o’clock and so did the theatre. So just before the end we sort of almost raced, well we hurried to the bus stop and just got the bus by the skin of my teeth knowing jolly well that when I got to High Wycombe the last bus leaves at twenty to nine and I would be turning up there at 11 o’clock. It was an hours’ journey on the bus. So from there I had to hoof it back to camp, five and a half miles and there was a long straight road like that. Bear in mind it was in the dark. All you’ve got is the stars and there was a sharp left-hand turn and you go up Coombe Hill. A very steep hill and I was getting near to this and I could hear all this row coming along so I turned the corner and I was still way up this hill and got nearer and nearer and presently a little Ford 8, not Ford, Morris 8 coupe came past me. It had got two in the front seats, a driver and a passenger but the other people you see it was only built for children so they couldn’t sit in the back seat so there they were. They’d got their feet on the seats and they were sitting on the hood because the hood was down and they were singing and shouting. They were as drunk as lords and he said, ‘Keep going mate. You’re nearly there. You haven’t got much further to go.’ And I thought you rotten so and so’s you could have given me a lift. Well, in the end I don’t know whether the bloke ever changed down but that poor little machine struggled. I thought any minute now they are going to have to get out and push it but however it struggled and it struggled and eventually it got up to the top and then had to make a sharp right-hand turn. Anyway, I was still plodding along in the dark sort of thing because your eyes get used to the dark in the end. I finally got home at half past one in the morning. But if you had a time off you see your day off started at half past seven in the morning until half past seven the next morning. So the girls who lived in London and my friend was one of them we were friends until the day she died when she was sixty eight. She lived in London so she could go home for a night if she wanted to providing she got the early train back in the morning.
DK: Yeah.
QH: We had one girl that was a cook so we told her she was a prostitute. For three nights a week she would finish her work at half past seven after the evening meal and so she used to go up to london on the train. She would get a taxi down there up to London. She would come back in time for half past seven. Come back by train and then a taxi. Taxis were no problem for her she’d earned a lot of money [laughs]
DK: Right.
QH: But yeah.
DK: So she was, she was, how do I put this had a second job then.
QH: That’s right and I think a lot of people you see was why we were labelled because a lot of people did join thinking they were going to be, have all the men they could find. But you see we were billeted at least a quarter of a mile away from the airmen to start with and airmen didn’t have any money to pay for prostitutes.
DK: The Americans did though.
QH: Somebody in London was paying. She had the most gorgeous pair of slippers I’d ever seen.
DK: I’m assuming from where you grew up and where you came from all of this must have been a bit of a —
QH: Yes.
DK: Culture shock to you.
QH: It was a real learning curve.
DK: Yeah.
QH: Cor, dear. What I learned in those days is nobody’s business. Yeah. I got educated very well. I know one thing I knew don’t stand on the curb in Piccadilly Circus. But I wasn’t. I was a good four feet, a very wide pavement.
DK: Yeah.
QH: And I’d been looking in a shop window and they were the biggest shock of my life because they were dirty scruffy. They had one suit in there I think had been there since before the war and the floor was dusty, the windows were dusty and that sort of thing and I was looking at this suit crikey you know that was the only thing in the window. Peculiar. Of course you see clothes were on coupons at this time.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So you couldn’t just go in and buy something, you know. So —
DK: Going back to Bomber Command did you, did you ever witness the rate at all of the aircraft flying over and —
QH: No. No.
DK: You didn’t see that side of things.
QH: No. Never saw an aircraft at all. The nearest thing we got to anything to do with the war really was every now and again on a Friday morning the notice would go up Thursday evening about half past four time when nobody was looking at the notice boards that the next morning there would be a gas attack. So if you had any sense you were told to, you were given a little tin about that big and inside there was what some people said was just soft soap. I don’t know what it was but it was soft stuff. You’d put your finger like that and then do your glasses inside your gas mask.
DK: Right.
QH: Otherwise if you didn’t do that as you were completely enclosed you steamed up.
DK: Steamed up. Yeah.
QH: Yeah. So anyway —
DK: That prevented it then.
QH: That’s right. That stopped it steaming up.
DK: Yeah. Steaming up.
QH: So anyway this particular time we were going, we got halfway through the woods because we used to, we all used to all walk through the woods. So you’d go all down that long drive and up the hill and all the way about and about a mile from where the airmen’s barracks were to the headquarters. It was totally in the country you see with nothing about it anywhere. And so we’d be walking to the office and you’d see this great big white cloud coming through the trees to you. That sort of thing. So everybody off with your hat and dive in here and get this out and scrabble it on to your head and make sure it’s all tightly fitted and that sort of thing. Then you could carry on and you could walk through all this stinking stuff. It was harmless but we were told that if you don’t bring your gas mask your eyes would sting and it would take ages for them to unsting themselves as it were. You see the biggest trouble is some girls being out in the evening never bothered to read the notice board.
DK: Yeah.
QH: So they didn’t know and furthermore they were breaking the law because they had got no gasmask anyway. They’d been using that like a handbag. Makeup and all sorts. Hairbrushes and all sorts.
DK: You had to carry your gas mask all the time then.
QH: Oh yes. Oh yes. Wherever you went.
DK: Were they in trouble if they were caught out without gas masks then?
QH: Well, I don’t know because I never caught out so I don’t know what happened. I know one morning there was two girls did get caught out. I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t really mix a lot I suppose. I spent a lot of time writing to Frank in the evenings and of course I was a bookworm. I had a, when I first went into the room there were two sets of bunks and a single bed and Chrissie, I don’t know I can’t remember what office she worked in she was an office worker and so I said, ‘What bed do you want?’ so she said, ‘Well, you choose.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’d like the top bed.’ ‘Oh, that’s good. I prefer the bottom one.’ So yeah I used to climb up after supper and climb up there and sit and write to Frank and I couldn’t bother to go out. Most of the girls had gone out and I used to sit up there and read Agatha Christie or Daphne du Maurier and —
DK: Frank obviously wrote to you as well during the time.
QH: Oh, he wrote me every day.
DK: Yeah. Did he ever mention about the, I don’t know how much would be censored but did he mention about what he was doing and the operations and —
QH: No. Never discussed it.
DK: Never discussed it.
QH: No. He, I knew he was a bomb aimer and I knew he went out on raids. I knew he pressed the button that released the bombs and all that sort of thing but he never actually said where he sat. I mean when I was at Coningsby last year —
DK: Yeah.
QH: Was the first time I ever knew he laid on his stomach. Laid flat all the way. A tiny little place he had to crawl into. That would have given me claustrophobia to start with.
DK: Yeah.
QH: But no. He didn’t discuss anything. I think basically he didn’t want to worry me or frighten me and that sort of thing so no he didn’t.
DK: No. Ok. Well, we’ve been talking for an hour and a half. It’s been absolutely wonderful. I’m very conscious [unclear]
QH: I’m always talking for an hour and a half.
DK: Ok [laughs]
QH: I talk to my niece in Spain. We talk for an hour, an hour and a half.
DK: Ok. What I’m [pause] sorry. Go on.
QH: No. I was just going to say my niece who lives in Dorset has a brother John who does a bit of shopping for me once a fortnight and he lives four miles away. Margaret was up staying with John, she and her husband for a week. John always brings her for one evening to see me. So on this particular night we’d been nattering. She was sitting over there and I was sitting here, John was sitting there. There wasn’t all that clobber then and when they got up to leave I said, ‘I’m sorry, John.’ I said, ‘We’ve been, Margaret and I have been talking all the time. We’ve hardly said a word to you.’ He said, ‘Oh, don’t worry Robbie,’ he said, ‘That’s the Robinson’s disease.’ So ever since then it’s the Robinson’s disease.
DK: Robinson’s disease. Yeah.
QH: And my nephew Robert has got it. Michael has got it. I’ve got it. Margaret has got it. You’d be surprised.
DK: Can I just say that the Robinson’s disease has been very useful today hearing your stories. I’m going to switch this off now.
QH: Ok.
DK: As I say I think we’ve covered everything but thank you very much for your time.
QH: You’ll have to delete a hell of a lot of it.
DK: It’s all, it’s all history. It’s all social history. It’s all very important. Ok. I’m switching that off.