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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/468/8351/ABarkerWG160912.2.mp3
5bfb31a75ec95140f42b72d5e93e8c64
Dublin Core
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Title
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Barker, Winifred
Winifred Barker nee Goldthorpe-Womersley
W Barker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Barker, WG
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Winifred Barker.
Date
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2016-09-12
Rights
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Julian Maslin the interviewee is Mrs Winn Barker . The interview is taking place at Mrs Barkers home in Appleton near Chester on September the 12th 2016 .
WB: Appleton just, it was Upton.
JM: I apologise Upton, Upton near Chester thank you. Winn would you start by telling us a little bit about your life before you joined the Royal Air Force?
WB: Well, I was born at home at 29 Chellow Street in Bradford the eldest of three children and went to infants school and then on to a middle school and left school at fifteen, and went to work in an office in Bradford which is called the Bradford Dyers Association I started as a junior to work up to be a shorthand typist which I did attain slightly before the war started. I'm stuck now I don't quite know what else to say. I was seventeen years of age when war was declared so I wasn't eligible for the forces at that point. But I and a friend did join Civil Defence at seventeen and we were in a report centre when, if the alarm went off for air raids we had to report for duty and we were telephonists so that messages came through as to which type of bombs had been dropped and what services were required and we had to telephone for fire or the air raid wardens or the hospital or whatever was needed and then at that point I decided that I would like join the forces but I had to wait until I was older and then at nineteen years of age I decided I would like to join the Air Force and if I waited any longer I would be called up to do Munitions or Land Army both of which I didn't really take a fancy to. So at a few years before I was twenty I enlisted for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force now then I'm not quite sure where to go from there. I volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force on the 8th August 1942, just before my twentieth birthday I found myself in Morecambe for three weeks of square bashing on the promenade and getting initiated into service life this was after being kitted out in my uniform next I was sent a rail warrant to Doncaster and the service police on the station arranged transport up to RAF Bircotes a satellite of RAF Finningley where Douglas Bader was stationed I found it very exciting but I never met him. Soon after I was posted to RAF Oakley in Buckinghamshire a satellite of RAF station Westcott, my rail warrant meant travelling to London and changing on the Underground I found this very daunting as annual holidays from Bradford to Blackpool with my parents and siblings was as far as I had travelled by rail. Can I stop for a minute now....I soon settled into service life and made some lovely friends in K hut [?] of different trades and from many parts of the country Pat was born in New Zealand , Phyllis from Canvey Island, Ada from Walthamstow, Rita from Guernsey ,and Peggy from Oxford. We all went to Peggy's wedding to her Polish pilot Stefan and my husband and I visited them after the war. We all kept in touch after the war but sad to say Pat and I are the only two veterans left these friendships are precious memories. Can I stop now....Oh it's things that happened at that station. I celebrated my twenty first birthday at Oakley and the CEO noticed my cards and said I should have a treat, he reserved to seats at the local theatre in Oxford and paid for a meal for my friend and I to go to a hotel and then to the theatre.
JM: Go on then...
WB: Err we walked into the hotel to have the meal, the waiter came to ask us what we would like to drink, well at this point Phyllis and I were so surprised as we had never been into a public house in our lives and hadn't had anything to drink so the waiter suggested a sherry which we agreed to and then we had a lovely meal then off to the theatre [laughs]. When he said what sort of birthday, you know, fancy you shouldn't be having your twenty-first birthday just doing your ordinary duties you need an occasion so I thought it was extremely you know great of him to say to do that really for a little junior you know Stenographer [laughs] oh dear. So then the other things now after this are I don't whether my duties would have been interesting at that particular station? Right I'll talk about this then, are we right? My duties included typing station routine orders once a week which were recited by the Warrant officer on parade reading, oh errm all the camp service men had to parade apart from the aircrew and the Warrant Officer knew the station routine orders off by heart because he was semi-illiterate so I was asked to read letters for him and reply to letters for to his wife, he had joined the regular RAF as a young man he had a fantastic memory and was well liked. I also made out leave passes and rail warrants typing flight instructions for the training flight crews on rice paper which I found very exciting in the event of bailing out and getting captured it could be eaten. The aircrew trained mainly on Wellington bombers at Oakley 11OTU which was the final training unit before the crews were posted for operations, I'll stop there a minute cause yes [pause]. Pay parades were every fortnight on the parade ground, names were called from the registrar and we marched to the paymaster and saluted saying our rank, surname and last three numbers of our service number the loose money was handed to us and we marched back into line [laughs]. My husband and I found on reflection that we once went to the same camp dance at Marham in Norfolk but we did not meet so it was not until after, after we were demobbed and met that we started courting [laughs]. My cousin who was in the REME, the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers stationed at Weymouth in Norfolk took me on the pillion of his motorcycle to Leicester to a concert on a twenty-four hour pass when I was stationed at the time at RAF Marham it was a nice wartime treat for us both. Well I want to stop now because errm. The repatriation of prisoners: one morning I joined some airwomen who had to report to a hanger on the station, a plane had landed with a group of servicemen from various branches of the armed services who had been repatriated from prison camps as we welcomed them we noticed they seemed surprised not quite able to comprehend what was happening, they were then given a full english breakfast which turned out to be too much for them to digest after their treatment as prisoners of war the medics were called and it was an exciting episode for everyone and especially for us a memorable diversity from our everyday duties. Some of them had a number on their arms, I was quite surprised because I thought they had come from ordinary prisoner of war camps but I don't think I imagined it but they were very reticent to really say very much about what had happened to them but they were just pleased to see errm to see uniformed members of the forces mingling with them, and talking with them.
JM: Do you know what happened to them, did they go on to other places?
WB: I think they were sent home for an extended from there...I think that's what they were looking forward to, they were all male but they were from lots of different parts of the armed forces.
JM: Did they look haggard and tired?
WB: Errm they looked rather tired, but most of them were in uniform so perhaps they hadn't been in prison too long .
JM: Or maybe they had been given fresh uniforms ?
WB: Maybe yes, I don't know really.
JM: Ok.
WB: They were certainly pleased to talk to some females [laughs] from the camp who were very pleased to speak to them.
JM: Thats good, thats very interesting thank you.
WB : I can't say much more about that 'cause that episode is a little bit vague understandably really, oh there's another interesting bit here about this, yes shall I start again?
JM: Please.
WB: We often had practice air raids on the camps air crew were immediately sent to the underground shelters but certain air women designated as wardens had to don gas masks and gas capes and started to take gas precautions against possible gas attacks it was a serious business but it did produce lots of laughter [laughs] that's all about that, that I can think of really.
JM: Was it the wearing of the gas masks that produced the laughter ?
WB: It was the fact that all the men were underground and the women were having to deal with it.
JM: Very good.
WB: Because we had to, we were given large buckets with some kind of liquid in and some long handled brushes and we had to start decominis.....whats the word.
JM: Decontaminate.
WB: Decontamination of the walls and lots of laughter was coming from the underground positions whilst we were dealing with all that, but we joined in with the laughter as well of course.
JM: Good, good.
WB: Now then there's just something here, I'm not sure about this one at all really 'cause it's very vague, am I still on tape now? One night there was a loud bang we had just settled down for the night and we were not called out, it seemed there had been a crash with two planes but we never found out what really happened so we kept quiet about it.
JM: Were you aware of how many crashes took place at an operational training unit.
WB: I don't think we had any crashes on our unit apart from this particular event but it wa kept really quiet.
JM: Did you get to know any of the flying personnel?
WB: Oh yes, yes I could mention something about that yes we intermingled with them quite a lot the quota from males to females it was about five to one [laugh] because the length of training was only six weeks and the aircrew were constantly coming in and moving out. They practiced on Wellington bombers on night flying operations and then the next thing was operations.
JM: Do you remember any of the aircrew in particular?
WB: Yes, I'll just tell you a little episode now that might be interesting, I had my first proposal of marriage at twenty years of age from a navigator but I refused him I was very fond of him he was a very nice person but not fond of enough to get engaged we did keep in touch when he moved on to operations and I heard from him that on one occasion he had been sick so he missed that operational sortie that particular time his crew flew without him and were shot down all lost their lives, it had a profound affect on him he survived the war. The same person who had courted me for quite some time we were on the camp together, took me to his home in North Norfolk and his family were very nice they were farmers and everything was very homely and the table was a white washed table which could be scrubbed as you can imagine in a farmer's family and when it came to tea time the bread was brought the homemade bread was brought and laid on the bread platter and then I was wondering what I was going to have for tea, the next thing that came on the table was a big pan and erm something inside this pan, I thought it might be stew but it didn't turn out to be stew it turned out be winkles [laughs] which I had had never ever had in all my life and I thought to myself however am I going to eat these winkles. Well his mother started to butter some bread and the plates came out and a spoonful of winkles was put on my plate and I had to look at the family to see how to eat them and they all had a pin and you had to take the winkle out of its shell on a pin and eat it and I said to my friend Leslie, I don't think I can eat these would I be allowed just to have the bread and butter and he said yes [laughter]. Oh that's it, oh dear I think I've missed alot out of this, but this is all I've got to say.
JM: Would you tell us what happened at the end of your service, when you were de-mobbed?
WB: Oh well, yes I did move around from various stations for short periods, but most of these memories are from when I was stationed at RAF Oakley, because I stayed the longest period there and made the most friends but eventually I was demobbed on the 8th May 1945 after serving for three years and eight months at the point here I would like to mention is that, no one who has been in the services forgets his service number which is quite remarkable. So I went back home, we had moved house by then to a different house but we were still in Bradford and my position at the firm where I was when I left was still open for me and by that time I had, I'd gone up from the junior to a shorthand typist so I took my place there and stayed there for quite a few months and then someone from the Land Army came back into the typing pool and was made the chief typist, and I was rather cross about that so I gave my notice in and then went to another firm as a shorthand typist.
JM: So would it be fair to say that your RAF experience had toughened you up?
WB: Possibly, yes I took umbridge I was disappointed really.
JM: And I get the impression you look back on your RAF service with a great deal of affection and regard.
WB: I definitely do yes, I had a very happy time making a lot of very new friends and yes I had a happy time.
JM: Could I take you back to the beginning of your story, you've told us about your background growing up in Bradford was joining the RAF, going through the training was that quite a shock was it a different environment from where you grew up or did you adapt to it quite easily?
WB: It was a different environment in the sense that life was different,we were living the women were sleeping in Nissen huts separated from the other parts of the aerodrome, for instance the mess where we ate and the headquarters where I worked so we had, so we were given bicycles so from then on we had to cycle from one part of the aerodrome to the other and soon afterwards I found out I had increased two stone to my weight from all this cycling around but I settled to it quite easily really, because it was exciting and what I wanted to do be in a different environment. The vicar from my church wrote to some friends that he knew in Thame which was the local village from where the camp was and they invited me and a friend to go and visit them and stay overnight in their beautiful cottage which had a lovely garden so we had passes to go there and that was really nice because these two maiden ladies treated us as their own and they said any time we had a short pass we could go and stay with them which we did so that was something that was really nice. And at another point another friend in our hut, she'd come over from America and her mother had hired a cottage somewhere near the station we could also go there on weekends and they had a beautiful garden with an orchard and plum trees and she said you can pick as many plums as you want so my friend and I picked as many as we could and put them in a parcel and sent them home they were Victoria Plums.
JM: Lovely, in my researches before meeting you today Winn, I've read that some of the the young ladies who joined the WAAF found it quite difficult to mix with girls of a quite different background and also the idea of living communally was a shock to many of them. Do you remember any of that at all?
WB: I don't remember it been a shock to me because I settled to it quite easily to it really. The ablutions were a bit peculiar because they were stone like troughs on a long err you know position and we had running water but we had no plugs so we all had to buy a plug and carry it around with us in our kit bags when we moved because otherwise you just had running water to wash your face, and your hands and your body so that was funny really because you needed to have a few inches of water to use your ablutions ,do your ablutions properly. But I don't remember finding it difficult personally no. I wanted to be in the forces, I wanted to be doing my bit for the country.
JM: And so it follows that the idea of military discipline was not difficult to adapt too?
WB: Oh the discipline you mean, yes I didn't like I didn't like parading I definitely didn't like parading and I did baulk at the idea that in station routine orders you were not allowed to wear greatcoats until a certain date of the year whether it was cold hot or what and you weren't allowed to wear gloves at a certain time, so that did err me very much I did think oh dear this is silly but of course you had to do as you were told, so that was a little bit hard for me but on a few occasions when there were general parades and the WAAF had to join in the WAAF officer let me off [laughs].
JM: How did you get on with the WAAF officers and NCOs ?
WB: Oh very well, yes very well the WAAF Officer was very kind, I think she was I think her rank was Pilot Officer because it was a satellite and when she went on her leave she always sent me a postcard and it was the comical Lucy Attwell's postcards with the shining face and the little blue eyes she was blonde with blue eyes she very pretty and we talked to each other just on an ordinary basis it wasn't as officer and airwoman she just spoke to me as an ordinary person a friend you know she was friendly. The Station Officer was friendly as well because we all worked in close proximity to each other but of course on duty on parades it was different.
JM: Mmm good, did you ever think about remustering in other trades, or were you quite happy to be a clerk?
WB: No, I was quite happy I knew I wasn't good enough to be in control in the control room or anything like that and I didn't fancy the mechanical side of it because after leaving school I always wanted to be in an office so that was why I took to it quite easily most of these friends I made were in different trades one was a parachute packer and another was a tailoress who mended uniforms and another was an engineer so you know we mixed quite well really but I was quite happy in my job.
JM: Did you talk about the way the war was going and your work on the station did you talk shop as it were or did you talk about other things when you were off duty?
WB: I think we talked about other things, I think we talked about dances and clothing [laughs] and clothing points and that sort of thing we went to, we could go to dances in the local towns with transport from the camp and this very nice warrant officer said to us don't wear your uniforms wear your civvies he said “I won't tell” [laughs] so that was quite...
JM: Did you adapt your clothing, did you make your own clothing or did you use your points to buy ready made clothing?
WB: Well I seem to remember we had a fancy dress party once and I wrote home and my Auntie made me an outfit for that and sent it on to me and it was a draught board with a very short frilly tutu skirt [laughs] but I didn't win a prize but I did take my own civilian clothes not a lot of course you couldn't get much in your kit bag could you? But I did wear a skirt and a nice frilly blouse for dancing and we did wear our nylons, well not nylons it was silk stockings then wasn’t it?
JM: That reminds me to ask you, talking about nylons did you ever have any visits from the American servicemen who were in that part of the Midlands?
WB: No, no I didn't come across Americans much being on a RAF station really there were on different stations mostly I think, so amongst the aircrew there were people from Canada, Australia and New Zealand but we didn't have any Americans.
JM; No, no, I wondered if any had visited from other nearby bases but you say not.
WB: I don't think so no, I can't remember that when I was at Marham it was an American station so there was some Americans there but I was only there a few months so I didn't get to know anybody there.
JM: What about sporting activities?
WB: Sorry?
JM: Sports, did you play much sport?
WB: I played hockey against a men's team, and we won because we got them on the ankles [laughs] but that was all, I don't think I did anything else any other sport my sport was dancing.
JM: And you'd go regularly?
WB: Oh yes, I'd never miss a dance went to all the dances.
JM: Were they on the camp or in the local town?
WB: They were...we did some on the camp but mostly they were in Oxford we were taken to Oxford most of my memories were from Oakley really from that area.
JM: I want to ask you quite a difficult question in some respects you mentioned the possibility of getting engaged to the Flyer.
WB: Leslie.
JM: Yes, did many girls get engaged or get married to flying personnel and did they have many losses ?
WB: Well my best friend Peggy did marry the Polish Officer, pilot officer and we all went, we as friends we went to her wedding she got married during the war and her Father wouldn't go to the wedding because he didn't want his daughter to marry a foreigner and Stefan was a very nice person he really nice, but her Mother went and he did survive the war because my husband and I went to visit him after the war and she wrote and told me with all these friends that I corresponded with we knew all about each other's lives after the war because we wrote to each other and told them about our children and what we were doing and everything but another friend did marry a man from the ground staff and she kept in touch with me and told me that they'd had a son called David and I knew all about her and Pat of course who is still the surviving member now with me she wrote and told me all about her family she didn't go back to New Zealand she stayed in London and she married an airman from the camp but they all survived they all survived the war the ones my friends that I remember survived the war.
JM: That's good to hear .
WB: They were very lucky.
JM: I've also read that perhaps unsurprisingly some WAAFs fell pregnant during their time on camp do you have any recollection of anybody that you know having done?
WB: Yes, one.
JM: And what happened to them?
WB: one, one WAAF that I only knew not really personally but she did fall pregnant and her husband she was married and her husband was an MP so I don't know really what happened to her but they were all discharged as soon as they were made pregnant and of course most people who joined up I believe we not married, unmarried so there weren't very many that wasn't married. But there was only one that I remember.
JM: Alright.
WB: She was discharged immediately so we lost touch with her.
JM: Did you ever get the chance or want to want to have the chance to fly in any of the Wellingtons?
WB: Oh I didn't get the chance to fly but my name was on the list because I did want to go in an aeroplane but apparently there had been some accidents somewhere around the country I don't know where and so it was not allowed anymore. But one of the friends that was in my hut did manage to get up unbeknown to the authorities what she was doing and she did have one or two little spins up did this girl.
JM: I expect you were quite envious was you?
WB: I was really yes, but I was disappointed I did want to go up in a plane.
JM: In a way Winn you were living the life which was in advance of where we are now of the women doing special jobs while the men were in the cellars you were living a life where women had extra responsibilities and duties, would you say that women were treated fairly during your time in the services as women or was there discrimination?
WB: I think so I don't think there was any discrimination really because the jobs that airwomen could do were very you know there were lots of jobs they could do that were similar to the men, the could be drivers, definitely engineers, parachute packers and that sort of jobs so they were not limited the jobs that you could do as a woman.
JM: And were women officers able to give orders to male airmen.
WB: I don't think so I think they were just in charge of the women, they were, there was a WAAF officer in every headquarters in every station but I think they were for the women that were serving really I think the men officers took command really.
JM: When you look back on your service you obviously feel that you did do your duty.
WB: Yes, I'm sure I did all I was asked to do yes.
JM: And do you feel a member of the extended family of Bomber Command which you really are?
WB: I definitely do yes I do because we've already been on one holiday to Bomber County which is in Lincoln and we've been around quite a lot of memorials that's why we went and we to the one where was the Dambusters headquarters.
JM: That would be the Petwood hotel.
WB: Yes and was it the 107 squadron Dambusters?
JM: 617.
WB: 617, and we went to all the memorials in the area around about there and that was a special holiday that my daughter and husband took me on, we all enjoyed that and we're going again this year on my birthday to go to this new memorial that going to be built there.
JM: Good, good.
WB: So I'm very much involved in it I feel.
JM: Good.
WB: I was very pleased to be asked to have these memories voiced.
JM: Well they are very important you have told us a great deal that I'd not heard before about life as a WAAF and I'm sure that the memories that we have recorded this morning will be of great interest to people researching the Second World War and Bomber Command for years ahead and so thank you very much it's been a marvellous interview thank you very much indeed.
WB: Thank you.
JM: Winn, I gather that you have thought of two other stories you'd like to record so please tell us.
WB: Yes, on one occasion I do remember being stationed at RAF Oakley and for some reason I decided to take a shortcut across the parade ground to the other corner where I was intending to go and I got roundabout the middle when a voice yelled out “airwoman” get off the parade ground and I nearly fell back in dismay because I thought what on earth have I done so I was taken to account for why I was crossing this and I was told that I was never ever must you walk across the parade ground unless you were detailed to be on parade. Another occasion was that I remembered that periodically the WAAF officer would distribute some Helena Rubinstein lipsticks and face powder compacts to us freely which were given by the company of Helena Rubinstein in America so we were all elated to have this free makeup which was a very expensive item.
JM: Thank you Winn.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Winifred Barker
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-12
Format
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00:41:46 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Identifier
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ABarkerWG160912
Description
An account of the resource
Winifred Barker grew up in Yorkshire and worked in an office before she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She served as a clerk at RAF Oakley, an operational training unit.
Contributor
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Carmel Dammes
Rights
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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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1945
civil defence
ground personnel
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Finningley
RAF Marham
RAF Oakley
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/466/8349/PBallF1502.1.jpg
5ede7f39f4ebaab555201d7f5507a781
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/466/8349/ABallF150826.2.mp3
33f8775a395d909e38abdb459c93e449
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Ball, Frederick
Frederick Charles Ball
F C Ball
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Ball, F
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Frederick Ball and one photograph.
Date
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2015-08-26
Rights
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: So this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is me, Annie Moody, and the interviewee is...err the interviewer is Annie Moody and the interviewee is Freddie Ball and this interview is taking place at his home in Harrogate on the 26th August 2015.
FB:
AM: Yes, tell me where you were born, and what your parents did?
FB: Yes just by the post office in town...
AM: In Harrogate?
FB: Do you know the Post Office
AM: No.
FB :No? Right in the centre, of course, from where we lived we could look right into St Peter’s School playground, so I just had to go around the corner to go to school.and then when I was older, I went to Christchurch School.
AM: How old were you when you left school Freddie?
FB: Fourteen.
AM: And then what did you do?
FB: Err, mechanic, apprentice mechanic.
AM: Yeah.. for what, a garage or a car....?
FB A garage, of course, yeah, in Harrogate yes. I like anything to do with engines, motors, things like that. aah, then I joined in March 1939
AM: Right, what made you join the RAF then?
FB: Er, wanting to you know, wishing to, proud to...
AM; Why the RAF as opposed to the Army, or the Navy?
FB: Oh, the flying side I wanted of course.
AM: Right, you wanted to fly. So what was that like, joining up, where did you go to join up?
FB: Oh gosh I...um... I should really know that... near Leeds somewhere anyway
AM: Somewhere near Leeds? And what was that like?
FB: No, no problem at all, er I just took, er,oh to join up, I thought you meant just arranging it.
AM: No, actually joining up.
FB: I forget where we went, you know I should remember that, where I did the training, not far from Leeds, but I can’t remember where.
AM: It doesn't matter, what sort of questions did they ask you? What sort of... How long did it take? How did they decide what you were going to do in the RAF?
FB: Er, well, I told them, I told them what I wanted to do, they could have said no...
AM: And what did you want to do?
FB: To fly, and use the wireless of course, wireless, and radar.
AM: Mmm why radar?
FB: Oh, well...
AM: Because that's different to being a motor mechanic...
FB: Yes, well, I didn't know if I really wanted to be a motor mechanic, I was interested in motors and engines and things like that before I started in the trade and I did three years sixteen to nineteen and then I joined up in March '39. I was nineteen. I did fifteen years and eleven of it was commissioned, and er, I went into insurance.
GR: Did your brother join up at the same time?
FB: Well he was too young... no he could have done, no... he went into the air force as well.
GR: Yes
FB: And I can't remember, I don't think I remember what he did! But I quickly went into flying...
AM: What was the…..
FB: I went to be a mechanic first of all, then the first chance I got I joined the aircrew.
AM: What was the training like, Freddie?
FB: Er, well, interesting hard rather... plenty of square bashing
AM: Where were you doing the square bashing, Where did you go for that?
FB: Er, er, on the parade grounds, the parade grounds, I can't remember…...
AM: Can you remember where in the country it was? Lots of people went to Blackpool and places like that...
FB: Hmm, I know, it was near Leeds, but I can't remember where...
AM: Right ok.
FB: I spent a lot of time training of course, after that, after flying.
GR: And I think you did your radio training at Yatesbury.
FB: Yes that's right yes.
GR: And that would have been in the summer of 1940 while the Battle of Britain was going on so err
So, er... and then from Yatesbury, I think we ended up going to Cottesmore.
FB: That's right... Rutland.
GR: And you were part of 14 Flight OTU at Cottesmore.
FB: 14 OTU
Gr: That's right, and can you remember what aircraft you were training on then?
FB: Well, Cottesmore was ground training, drillers, and stuff, it was a training station
GR: It was a training station, and I think they had Ansons and Hampdens
FB No, Cottesmore wasn't an air- ground, ground crew
GR: Just ground crew right, so when did you first start training in aeroplanes?
FB: Er, oh, gosh, er, I don't know.
GR: That would have been at an Operational Training Unit, and I think that's where you came across the Hampdens
FB: February '43
GR: No, you were on operations by then.
FB: Yes, that's right
AM: What was it like, going up in the first time, in a plane?
FB: Well, I always wanted to, it was free to go, no problem, I wasn't scared, or anything like that.
AM: No, too young to be scared.
FB: I'm always a fatalist about things like that, that's why I wasn't bothered going on ops, you're going to die, why worry about it?
AM: Yeah.
FB: Your fate is all organised for you, you can't change it.
AM: So you've gone up on your first flight, and you're going to be a radar and radio operator, at what point did you meet up with the rest of your crew?
FB: Well, er, an Operational Training Unit they forms crews...
AM: So they get you all together and you, yeah..
FB: yeah all different trades
AM: Yes
FB: And they had to make certain that you wanted it that way.
AM: That you got...so who chose who? Did the pilot choose the rest of you?
FB: Er, I don't think so, probably the very senior ones did choose from the people available, but I don't think so.
AM: So then you started to fly together as a crew
FB: That's right, on operations, at the OTU, the training unit, which is the drill square, drilling.
AM: Erm, at what point did you, when did you go to your first squadron then to actually do proper operations?
FB: Errrrr
AM: What squadron was it?
FB: 44 Waddington, Lincoln
AM: Waddington, in Lincoln. What sort of planes did...
FB: Hampdens
AM: That was on Hampdens, So what was the radio operator and radar mans spot like in a Hampden? Quite cramped I think, what was it actually like in the plane?
FB: Er, it was comfortable, there wasn't a lot of room
AM: No.
FB: It wasn't that shape, but I felt no real discomfort. Very nice to fly in.
AM: What was the radar part of the job like?
FB: Er, well, you just had the screen in front of you, and you deal with it
AM: and what are you actually looking for, though?
FB: Er, it's geography, where you are, where you going, all that sort of thing
AM: And Gary tells me your first raid to Berlin was in March 1941
FB: Er yes,
AM: And that was your first operation?
FB: Yes
AM: Yes, so what was that like, were you scared, or excited?
FB: Excited, I don't know about scared, I always accepted things.
AM: A cup of tea arriving
[tea served]
AM: So then, you, so you're up there, you're doing the job, was it easy, was it difficult, was it just...
FB: Easy and a pleasure, it's what I wanted to do, I enjoyed it.
AM: What could you see? You're up there, you're in the plane, it is your first operation... what are you actually looking at?
FB: You look out and see everything that's there.
AM: What about all the other planes? Could you see other...
FB: Oh yes, so, if they're there, yes of course, there was hundreds of planes about.
AM: Was it at night?
FB: Our main job was at night, yes. but we did go on daylights.
AM: You did daylights as well, yes
FB: There was a thousand raid, I went on a few thousand raids, a thousand aircraft
AM: A thousand aircraft,in the day? Or at night?
FB: Errrrr
AM: I think they were night, weren't they?
FB: Mostly night
AM: Yes, so what was that like? A thousand planes?
FB: What...?
AM: What was that like, to see, could you see them, did you know there were that many?
FB: I knew they were around, yes, and it's nice to look down, especially on Berlin, all the streets... my first trip was to Berlin
AM: Yes.
FB: I went six times.
AM: Yes, what other sort of operations did you do, apart from the Berlin one?
FB: All, all bombing.
AM: Yes.
FB: We were bombing cities.
AM: In Germany.
FB: Yes.
AM: Yes. When did you move from Hampdens on to... I think you went to Manchesters?
FB: I did er, I did a tour on Hampdens
AM: A full tour.
FB: On Hampdens, then went on a rest at an OTU and instructed on the radio, and...
AM: OK
FB: Err, and then I was commissioned then, later.
AM: So you've done a whole tour, then you've done training at OTU, then you went on a second tour?
FB: Yes, I had a years, quite a long time, on rest, training in wireless and radar instructing..
AM: And then I think Gary says you moved to 49 Squadron.
FB: 49 Scampton, 44 Waddington, both Lincoln.
AM: Both Lincoln again. So you've done a full tour on Hampdens, at 49 Squadron did you start on Hampdens or move straight to Manchesters?
FB: A full tour on Hampdens, Manchesters, and Lancasters
AM: Which was the best out of the three?
FB: Ah, the Lancaster of course.
AM: Of course. Why?
FB: Four engines!
AM: Because of the four engines, all on Lancasters at 49 Squadron. And you did another full tour?
FB: Yes, and in between too, the famous thousand raids cropped up whilst I was instructing. And to get a thousand, they came from all over the place, including instructors, and including some not fully trained, to get a thousand. I did all the thousand raids, the first one was Berlin, it's nice to look down on the city.
AM: yes
FB: I remember quite clearly, yes, all that's there, you'll find most detail...
AM: Yes, I'm looking at your logbook now with all the different raids that you did, as well. Cologne...
GR: The first thousand bomber raid was actually to Cologne. Freddy was actually at OTU training people. Because they were short of aircraft, to make the thousand up, they...
AM: And you've just described the whole city was a mass of flames...
FB: That's right, you look out and there's all flames everywhere in the streets of Berlin.
AM: Petrol tanks, your petrol tanks were hit by shrapnel?
FB: Yes! We were hit a few times but mostly all shrapnel if not we would have been shot down!
AM: So you had to land at Manston because you were short of petrol?
FB: Yes, we ran out a few times actually.
AM: Crikey, and then I'm just looking at a few other things in your logbook...
FB: Red is all midnight flying.
AM: Yes, so a night flight here to Essen, erm, and you had to return from the target because of engine trouble on that one...
FB: Yes.
AM: So you brought the bombs back?
FB: Oh yes.
AM So what happened to the bombs?
FB: You just had to land carefully!
AM: You literally had the bombs? You didn't get rid of the bombs? Oh right.
FB: I would be surprised if a lot of people... we did dump them sometimes, we had to, but erm...
AM: I think sometimes quite often they were dumped into the North Sea, weren't they?
FB: Yes. Oh, you wouldn't do it over land, if there was any other way
AM: I'm looking again, here... Bremen, and again you had to return because of port engine trouble
FB: Yes.
AM: But you always got back.
FB: Well, I'm still here!
AM: Exactly [both laugh] Dusseldorf...
FB: Oh yes, most of the big cities raids, sixty...
AM: Yes... which did you prefer, flying, or instructing?
FB: Oh, flying!
AM: Flying of course
FB: Operational flying.
AM: What did you get your DFC for?
FB: Oh gosh
AM: For the number of tours?
FB: Part of it, I suppose, sixty... two tours, sixty trips
AM: Mmmm, when did you actually finish flying?
FB: March '43, and I got married the next day.
AM: The next day?
FB: I got back from flying, night flying, the same day in the afternoon I was married.
AM: Where had you met your wife?
FB: Whilst in Lincoln.
AM: She was a Lincoln girl?
FB: Yes.
AM: Was she a WAAF, or just she lived in Lincoln
FB: She lived there.
AM: She lived there, yes.
FB: She was older than me actually, 4 years older.
AM: So what did you do, so once you'd finished flying in 1943, what did you do then?
FB: Er, so I finished flying in, er, no I didn't finish flying, I was flying 15 years altogether
AM: Yes. Actually in the war though, when you'd done your two operations?
FB: Oh instructing.
AM: You were instructing
FB: Everyone did, yes,nothing else for it!
AM: And when the war actually finished, so you weren't demobbed, you stayed in... did they....
FB: I was already a regular, long term, I signed up for six years and then I signed for fifteen to qualify for the pension.
AM: Right.
FB: I was very young to have a pension for life.
AM: Yes, very young. Crikey.
FB: I had four pensions altogether, a private one as well...
AM: Yes. What did you do after you left the RAF then?
FB: Insurance.
AM: Right, okay thinking back...
FB: Erm, erm, it’s not like ….it was your own business sort of thing
AM: Yes
FB: You buy a book, from another agent, with all the customers, everything done you pay him for it.
AM: I remember Royal London coming round to our house with this book, yes..... Any stories from the war, any funny stories about what happened?
FB: Er, I dunno, it was nice looking down on Berlin, you know, look down on all the streets and things like that , uh, and I liked to be doing it, I was glad to be doing it, no forcing involved!
AM: When you say you wanted to do it, why?
FB: Because the war was on, duty.
AM: So it was duty to do it?
FB: I did enjoy it, that's the reason.
AM: What did you think, in retrospect now, do you still think that?
FB: Do I think what?
AM: That is was our duty to do it?
FB: Oh yes of course, oh yes.
AM: Yes. I think Gary is telling me that your brother was shot down during the war.
FB: Yes, he was a prisoner of war, he was two years younger.
AM: Yes, mmhmm.
FB: He died, eventually. He died. A normal death.
AM: Not….
FB: Many years later.
AM: I was going to say, many years later...
FB: He had six children
AM: Crikey!
FB: I had four marriages, and one child.
AM: Ha ha, just the one. So, unless you have anything else interesting any interesting stories, I'll switch off and let you enjoy your tea.
FB: Er, I dont know about that er, I don't know what to say...
AM: Anything particular..
FB: I wanted to do it, I volunteered to do it, I enjoyed it, and it was lovely to look down on Germany, knowing they were under, that we'd got them like a... I can't explain now. Doing the job.
AM: Doing the job. Absolutely, yes helping to bring the war to an end.
FB: Thats right.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Frederick Ball
Creator
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Annie Moody
Gary Rushbrooke
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-26
Format
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00:19:36 audio recording
Identifier
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ABallF150826
Conforms To
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Pending review
Type
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Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Frederick Ball grew up in Yorkshire and trained as a motor mechanic, before he joined the RAF in 1939. He completed two tours with 44 and 49 Squadrons, as a wireless operator flying from RAF Waddington and RAF Scampton.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carmel Dammes
Rights
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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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
44 Squadron
49 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Hampden
Lancaster
Manchester
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Scampton
RAF Waddington
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/465/8348/ABaileyLMM151006.1.mp3
4e9091253c184e969b80538850e3ac75
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Bailey, Lillian Margaret Mary
L M M Bailey
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Bailey, LMM
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Lillian Margret Bailey
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-06
Rights
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Hello my name is Pam Locker and I have come from the Bomber Command Memorial trust
today to interview Mrs Margaret Lillian Mary Bailey; in her home, and Margaret thank you very
much indeed for agreeing to talking to talk to us and I am really looking forward to hearing your
story. So do you want to just start by telling me a little bit about your family and you came to be
involved with the WAAF?
MB: Well I was one of seven children, and in those days you had to do something some war work
and I volunteered to join the WAAF so that's how I got into the air force.
PL: Wonderful, and I understand that you inherited a new name?
MB: Thats right.
PL: Tell me about that.
MB: Well I was on this station and there was WAAF drivers we were all WAAF drivers and
there was three Lillian's on it and this officer said we can't have three so what’s your second name,
and I said Margaret since then I've been called Margaret.
PL: Oh my goodness! So tell me a little bit about your time at the WAAF , how did it feel at the
start when you first joined?
MB: Well I was a bit nervous at first you know, young, I joined up at Gloucester but I don't
know what the....where you get your uniform and...but I can't remember what it was called, then I
went to Ely near Cardiff, Barrage Balloon just while I was waiting to get posted to be trained as a
driver. I hung my coat in the porch one day and I had Ten shilling note in the pocket and that was
gone, of course I got told off for leaving it in me pocket they said it would teach you a lesson. So
I remember that from that house then I went to Cardington, near Bedford where I did my MT
training. And from there I went to Woolfox Lodge that’s near Stamford and that’s where they gave me
my new name there
PL: Right.
PL: And they were Stirlings and I wasn't there long then I went To Elsham Wolds
in Lincoln there was 103 Squadron and 576 and I was.....576 Squadron was just starting up and I
was sent to them, although it was after my MT training by the way.....I was there from 1943 to 1945 we
used to take the crews out to the Lancasters at any time of the day or night whenever they were going, if
it was night time we would go back to our billet and when we were called to pick 'em up we'd put
our battle dress over our pyjamas and go and pick 'em up anytime of the night or morning.
PL: Goodness....so were you able to choose what you wanted to do did you choose to be a
driver?
MB: Oh yes, I chose to be a driver some girls didn't carry on because they were too nervous
they'd sit up in bed with a steering wheel in their hand having nightmares but I was ok.
PL: Could you drive before?
MB: No, they taught you.
PL: Right.
MB: That was at Cardington, I think they still do it there now training . And Hiliary .. Hiliary
Roberts was stationed there with me she's the only one that’s alive now that were there, all the
others passed on.
PL: How many were there?
MB: Umm?
PL: How many of you were there altogether?
MB: In the section there were about twelve I suppose drivers because you did different times then
we had bad weather snow couldn't...the planes couldn’t take off we had no water so we used to
get the snow and melt it to wash and when it was foggy and that the crews were stood down so
we was stood down aswell and we all used to go into Scunthorpe or anywhere round like that.
PL: Anywhere in particular?
MB: Anywhere in particular?
PL: In Scunthorpe?
MB: Well in Scunthorpe there was a Toc H and this lady was in Toc H, she used to tell the
airmen and WAAFs that her house was open house and we used have you could have a bar there and
go anytime and they used to feed you and all that we used to call her Mum Martin so we used to
go there the pictures but then there was the Oswald at Scunthorpe but I only went once ‘cause I was
told I was too young or something to be in there so.
PL: So how old were you then?
MB: Nineteen when I joined up but some people look older than others don't they?
PL: Indeed, so the Oswald Pier was where all the Americans....
MB: Americans all around as well as Lancaster's we used to get loads go to the aerodromes for
parties and that, a lorry would pick us up and take us.
PL: So how was your...describe to me what a typical day would be like for you.
MB: Well you had.....there was two a WAAF site and a site on the aerodrome for the WAAFs
and for the WAAF drivers that were driving the crews to the aircraft were stationed on the
aerodrome, so erm you had different hours to do like so you'd get up go to breakfast and then go
to the MT section and that’s where you'd be where you were wanted to take the airmen seven in a
crew and we had little Bedford vans with a canvas roof at the back, you know we used to take
them out in that and then they'd be there for a long while before they took off depending on the
weather and the time and that and we used to be there with them like until they took off and then
we'd come back to sections what ever time you had your meals and then err you didn’t do nights
every time, you had shifts like and that’s when you took, two girls were on and two fella drivers
and we'd sleep in a little hut there and took them out and wait got back into bed then they'd call us
and we'd have to get up and go and bring them in and then we'd go back to our billets.
PL: So you must have got to know the crews very well?
MB: Oh yes very friendly with the crew but we knew that you know they wouldn't return a lot of them
Australians, Canadians ....and then when the war had finished they disbanded 516 so then I was posted
to Scampton I was there I don't know how long but I was there then we got shifted about a bit then I
went to Lindholme where I met my husband an MT driver.
PL: So how did you meet your husband?
MB: He was abroad , he was abroad Cairo and Malta all during the war so when he came to Lindholme
he wasn't used to WAAF drivers and we got friendly and then where did I go from there? Can't think
where I went from there but I got demobbed err, I got demobbed in 55? 56, and my friend and I
Kay who was at Lindholme we couldn't settle down into civilian life so we both rejoined went to
Wilmslow to rejoin ,and then err we were sent to Margate, Manston aerodrome Spitfires and then I got
married from there. She got married but she went out to Canada with her husband we kept in contact
until last year...I think she passed away.
PL: So firm, firm friendships made!
MB: Pardon?
PL: Firm friendships made at that time?
MB: Oh yes you had to didn't you really to pal up with people.
PL: So what year did you get married?
MB: I got married in 1948 I was still in the ... I was at Manston aerodrome then and my husband
was up at Hednesford up that way then when we got married I went up there to his camp with him until
I got demobbed and then he was posted down to ...where was it did I say the he got demobbed
we bought a bungalow.
PL: And what about your own parents?
MB: They lived in Essex, Wickford in Essex and my sister was in the land army two brothers were
in the army but we were all lucky we had all escaped got home.
PL: How wonderful, so you travelled about quite a bit.
MB: Oh yes yeah, didn’t go abroad they didn’t have WAAF drivers abroad we were only stationed
in England.
PL: So what...so when you carried on after the war ended what sort of driving did you do then? Was it the same?
MB: You'd drive to a shoe factory take the men’s shoes to a factory in Nottingham, and laundry
drive big lorries and do all things like that you know.
PL: So and did you did make friends with other WAAFs who were outside who weren't drivers
who were doing other...
MB: Oh yeah ...the cookhouse but you really mostly kept to your own you know.
PL: So in your area what other roles were played by the WAAFs ?
MB: Erm Hiliary my friend she used to drive for the Officers HQ she might have done a bit on the
squadron but mostly she was driving officers around and then there’s drivers for all sorts of things
women didn’t drive the tankers it was men that drove them.
PL: Why was that?
MB: Where was it?
PL: Why was it?
MB: Well they were big things weren't they tankers.
PL: Is that the pet….Fuel tankers ?
MB: Yeah ...oh yeah you used to have to swing the lorries swing em with ....
PL: Oh....
MB: No automatic....
PL: A starting crank....
MB: And once I was on the cook's early morning and the old Ford lorries and it wouldn’t start and
you were swinging your heart out and they were sitting there waiting coz they go to go and cook the
meals got it done and going in the end.
PL: So you must have built up some pretty good muscles.
MB: [Laughs] oh yeah.
Pl: So what other memories might you have?
MB: Well you'd make a date with someone and they didn't turn up coz they didn't come back,
they didn't come back. The WAAF sights were in a woods or something, and they were Nissen
huts and you'd hear the rats running over the top at night and when it was raining you could hear
that on there you'd have to get out to go to the toilet in the dark the ablution but thats was all in
life you just took it as a matter of course.
PL: Did it feel...
MB: It was cold yeah....and know one wants the bed near the fire they was those big round
because everyone was sat on your bed when you had a bed near the fire.
PL: [Laughs] oh i see so it was it like a big pot bellied stove.
MB: Yes .
PL: My goodness ,so how many of you shared together?
MB: The hut was about fifteen or twenty something like that quite a lot, Friday night was domestic
night we had to polish the floor and do your buttons and everything.
PL: And was their a sort of a hierarchy amongst your group? Was there...were there different err...
MB: Like a Corporal you mean? That was in charge?
PL: Yes.
MB: Yes, but they didn't interfere with you really not with the MT girls because we didn't go on
parade or anything because we were always on demand.
PL: So I understand there was some sort of incident with an accident in a lorry.
MB: I was delivering shoes to a factory at Nottingham, a shoe factory all the factories were there
and I was called into the office when I got back, or a few days later said I'd hit a lampost or
something, that I'd backed into this lamppost but when he said it was I wasn't there that day,
anyway I was crying , he said what are you crying for he said so ‘cause I said I hadn't done it, he
said you may as well own up to it he said. Anyway a few days later it came back that it wasn't me
that I was telling the truth I wasn’t driving the lorry that day.
PL: So did you get an apology?
MB: Well no, he said you were crying for nothing that’s it, it wasn’t that but you were so annoyed
because knew you hadn't hadn't done it.
PL: Of course.
MB: They were accusing.... they were saying say you did it and that’s that but I wouldn’t say
it.
PL: A tough life, disciplined.
MB: Oh yeah and another incident was, oh when i was learning to drive I came over the brow of
this hill and i came a little near to this car in the middle and the instructor wasn’t taking any notice
of me he said I was alright you know, course that upset me didn't it I didn't hit it but the other
driver got out and was effing and arring [laughs] that’s another incidence I had.
PL: But you didn't hit him?
MB: No, that’s all in learning isn't it?
PL: Absolutely, you was going to tell me bit about Kay
MB: Kay, I met her at...
PL: What was her surname?
MB: Harrison, Kay Harrison at Scunthorpe ‘cause she was sent from one of the other aerodromes
that had closed down they were all closing down up in Lincoln and erm we got very pally she come
from Huddersfield, was it Huddersfield? Up north somewhere and we were , then we went to
Lindholme and then when I rejoined we both went to Manston in Kent and we used to go up, get
lifts off Officers that were going up, that were living up there to go home to our homes, as I say
she married an airman as well. Oh yeah when we used to be driving in the lorry along the high
street and the men were with their wives she'd wink at them and they'd wink back at her [laughs]
we used to laugh our heads off you watch me she'd say and she'd do that. She went to Canada
she became a nurse the last person on earth I thought would be a nurse, but we never met after
that we just used to write we hadn't got the money in those days to travel had we . [pause] Then
when I met my husband I was a Roman Catholic and he was a Protestant, he came from
Roscrea? in Ireland and they were dead against Catholics and Protestants marrying so erm we
parted for ten months because his Father wouldn't have it you know and then when I was at
Manston , when we rejoined at Wilslow in the NAAFI club in Manchester was it we used to go
there Kay and I, before we went down, and we met this fella and he knew my husband Joe he
said, I said has he got a girlfriend and he said no he's always on his own now so we sent him a
card from Wilslow and he said he went down to Wickford where I lived and kept looking for me
couldn't see me anyway when I was at Manston this other airman that came he said about him soI
wrote to him we wrote to him and then from then on we got together his Father was upset because
he wouldn't go home he stayed on in the air force ‘cause he said i was going to be the only one and
he lost contact with all his family because they were dead against it you know but then in years to
come before Dave was born wasn't it he came down and stayed with us, and he doesn't know
why he was like that really , but this is what goes on in ....we were married sixty five years we
don't regret it at all he passed away February '13, two years ago so then I came to live here with
David we only used to live down the road.
PL: So how many children did you have?
MB: Only the one, I lost two yeah.
PL: Did you want to say something about Ernest, do you remember Ernest ?
MB: What about? Oh Ernest yeah, when we was at the reunion cause every year we go to a reunion at
Elsham Wolds I've been going there for about twenty three years I only missed last year because I
had a knee transplant and course we met up with this Earnest he lived in Barnetby that's near the
aerodrome he was only about thirteen I suppose, him and his friends used to come and look in the
WAAFs through the keyhole, he told us didn't he yeah they're all young lads, used to look through
the keyholes when we was having a bath and everything and the err he said they used to go up on
the aerodrome and get on the Lancasters
PL: Really?
MB: Yeah we don't know how they done that
PL:What? Get actually into the planes?
MB: Yeah.
PL: My goodness a dangerous game I would have thought!
Mb: But they've joined the reunion now so, there's not many of us left now but all they young
nephews and sons and that have all joined to keep it going, so every year it's always a weekend
isn't it we go up and have a reunion it's a hectic weekend we have, we all meet together and have
dinner in the evening Saturday evening then Sunday we have the service and we go up to the
aerodrome in front of the waterworks where we've got a memorial and the Lancaster flies over if
the weathers suitable and it comes swooping in it goes all ways we're all waving at it.
PL: How wonderful.
MB: That the highlight of the year that is, going to the reunion then the memorial on armistice day
we go, the week before we all meet there as well, I can't think of anything else.
PL: Could I just ask a little earlier we had a conversation about Bomber Command and how its
been remembered would you like to share your own thoughts about Bomber Command
MB: [pause] I don't know what to say....
PL: Do you...one of the things that you said was you felt it had been a long time coming the
recognition.
MB: Oh the recognition of the Bomber crews which has taken a long while mostly they said it was
because of us bombing Dresden but then they bombed London first and Coventry so why it was
put against us I don't know but at last they're recognising all what the young lads went through. I
remember once a Lancaster landing and the rear turret was hanging from the back of it and the rear
Gunner right down his side and the crew didn't know it was hanging there they thought it had
come off you know . That's one memory, then we saw them bailing out over because the
aeroplane was too damaged to land and all the crew would bail out on the aerodrome. I mean you
were young then you didn't take things so seriously did you, you should have done really you just
thought well this is what we've got to isn't it and you did it. But I, we all enjoyed our times you felt
like you were doing something it was either going in munitions or land army or something like
or the army and I chose the Air Force. And being in the Air Force was the best time of my life
because I was that age met plenty of friends. It was hard to settle down when you come out. But
we all kept in touch with all the friends WAAF drivers and my husband used to come with me,
they used to come to reunions and we went to all their funerals gone, there was Jean Clacker she
was a driver and she went out to one of the dispersal and she saw this airman there and she came
back and said "I'm going to marry him" and she did! [laughs] 'Oh I'm going to marry him' she
said.
PL: What was the dispersal?
MB: Oh that was where the aircraft drove in to be parked and there was a nissen hut there and we
all used to get in there waiting, to go off the crews to go off and that.
PL: Do you remember any of the others that were in your group?
MB: Err there was Margaret,
PL: The two Margarets [laughs}
MB: Yeah another Margaret, Margaret Hawkins and Eric that's her husband now Hawkins
....no...Eric I can't think of his name but we always went to the reunion but they've both passed
away so nearly all my friends have gone, Rose lived at err Ipswich.
PL: Is there anything else at all that you would like to share with us before we conclude the
interview?
MB: Only that I was glad I was in the RAF I enjoyed it although there was sad times and good
times and when we go to our reunion it brings back alot of memories although we all look a lot older
now. Oh I had my photo taken it's at Manston Aerodrome and a documentary a Spitfire was flying
in with a pilot and I was standing waving, distracting him and it's on a film but I've never seen it but a
friend of ours joined the RAF and he they were showing it to him and he recognised me
PL: How wonderful and when was that? When was the film taken?
MB: That was about 1948 or 47.
PL: Goodness, so somewhere there's a film of you,
MB: Yeah Somewhere....
PL: Somewhere your fame, fame at last
MB: You tried to get it did you? So, I know it's there ‘cause he's seen it when they joined up they showed
them all these films for accidents and all that Kay was there aswell but they picked me out , i don't know
why but they picked me out to do it.
PL: So you were told you had to distract him?
MB: Yeah.
PL: So this is Health and Safety 1940's style?
MB: [laughs] Yeah this is what they are teaching the trainees and all that what they shouldn’t be
doing.
PL: Well Margaret that’s absolutely wonderful thank you so much for sharing your....
MB: Sorry, I can't think of anything else but...
PL: I think all those memories are absolutely wonderful thank you so very much indeed
MB: You're welcome ...oh another thing I remember is when the aircrew the Lancasters were
taking off it didn't matter what time of the day or night we'd all be out there waving them off so
that made them feel good as well all waving and one airman that i was friendly with he err , we
used to meet up and go to the pictures and that and he said to me ‘we're all frightened we're all
scared none of us are you know….’ ...however young and boisterous and that when they went on them
operations they were really frightened, he never came back either and a lot were taken prisoner of
war and at the end of the war the Lancaster went out to bring them back from prisoner of war
camps and they said you wouldn't recognise them they looked so old been in a concentration
camp, so it was hard for them wasn't it.
PL: Very hard , do you know those concentr.....where they they sent?
No, i just know that they brought them back. I think that's all I can't remember anything else
PL: That’s wonderful thank you.
DB: He was a pilot wasn't he Mum?
MB: I think he was a Gunner......
PL: So tell me who Ken Duddle was
MB: He was the.....
DB: He was the chairman of Elsham Wolds
MB: He was the chairman of the Elsham Wolds but he's retired now?
DB: But in the war he was a pilot wasn't he?
MB: No i think he was a Gunner
DB: He was a Gunner was he?
PL: So what was his role? He would include the WAAFs in the memorial services?
MB: In everything, he included and we Hiliary and I appreciated that because the others I think they
think they are above you don’t they the Aircrew and they've got ranks Sergeants and warrant officers
and all that but then that goes on in everything doesn't it?
PL: So we've just been looking at some of your wonderful photographs and you've got a lovely
photograph of your wedding but tell...just share with us how you got your dress.
MB: Well when a WAAF got married and they, the Air Force lends you a wedding dress the
Americans have given these wedding dresses to the Air Force and we've borrowed them we had to
pay a pound to have them cleaned when we handed them back, as you can see it's a beautiful dress
PL: Oh when you handed them back?
MB: Yeah when you handed then back
PL: Not to get them cleaned before you wore them?
MB: No I expect the person that handed them back had it cleaned, they cleaned them I suppose but you
paid a pound.
PL: Wonderful.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Lillian Margret Bailey
Creator
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Pam Locker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-06
Format
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00:41:16 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABaileyLMM151006
Description
An account of the resource
Lillian Margaret Bailey volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and after a brief time in RAF Balloon Command was trained as a driver. She served at RAF Elsham Wolds driving aircrews out to their aircraft.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carmel Dammes
Rights
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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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1945
103 Squadron
576 Squadron
fear
ground personnel
Lancaster
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Elsham Wolds
service vehicle
Stirling
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/16/6136/AAtkinsonA150623.2.mp3
194d2829b0981bb39f112129e533bbe5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Atkinson, Arthur
Arthur Atkinson
A Atkinson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Arthur Atkinson (1922 - 2020, 1042303 Royal Air Force) his log book, service material and two photographs. Arthur Atkinson trained as a wireless operator and spent eighteen months at RAF Ringway before being flying 34 operations with 61 Squadron from RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkinson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Atkinson, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: Ok so If you tell us about when and where you were born, and then go on from there.
AA: Yeah, I was born in Lancaster in Lancashire in 1922, went to a normal school, elementary school then I won a scholarship to the local Grammar school but , we didn’t have a lot of money so I wasn’t able to take up the scholarship so I carried on schooling at the elementary as long as I could and then when I left school, the Headmaster, I was head boy in the school by the time I left, and the headmaster got me a job at the local accountant, which was fine but in those days five shillings didn’t go a long way. So, in no time at all I had to leave there and got a job with the local coop behind the counter which I hated, I hated it from the first day and I decided then and there as soon as I was old enough I would join the RAF. That was my ambition I’d had one flight in an Avro 504 the open cockpit type with a local chap that came and that set me off I volunteered for the Royal Air Force as wireless operator, I always wanted to be a wireless operator and got my number at pad Gate I was accepted I got my number but unfortunately, they sent me home for deferred service which didn’t suit me at all. I was home for about six months and at the end of six months I was so fed up I wrote a letter to the Air ministry, saying “have you forgotten me?” and a week later my papers came. Then I reported to Blackpool to the initial training wing and wireless school, did my wireless training over Woolworth’s in Blackpool and then down to Compton Bassett to finish off with and when I qualified as a wireless operator I was posted to Ringway airport Manchester which then was RAF Ringway doing ground wireless operating duties there for about eighteen months until I was put under draft to go overseas as a ground wireless operator. Well a friend of mine on the same draft said “this isn’t good enough”, we were both waiting for aircrew training by then, so I went on embarkation leave, he went to see the CO and said “look you know this isn’t playing the game” so the CO agreed with him, and when I came back from leave embarkation leave found I’d been taken off the draft, and in a short while I was posted down to Yatesbury on a refresher course then went through the usual mill of flying training at Yatesbury.
MC: What sort of aircraft were you flying in?
AA: Proctor’s, little Proctor’s, Dominie, to start with then little Proctor’s then I did an EFU at Boddington near to Ha’penny Green then gunnery course down at Stormy Down in Wales. Then I finally qualified at the Operational training unit at Market Harborough and was crewed up by self-selection, I saw a pilot walking along and I liked the look of him and asked him if he wanted a wireless operator and did, he had a Bomb aimer, asked me if I knew any gunners which I did, and eventually we crewed up. Went through the training and finally posted to Coningsby 61 squadron.
MC: Who was your skipper and crew then?
AA: Bob Acott, Basil. M. Acott but we called him Bob. The only thing was that we hadn’t had leave for ages and they said you can’t go on leave until you’ve done at least one operation with the squadron but unfortunately before we went on Ops we had to a couple of cross countries and unfortunately our navigator suffered from airsickness and every time we took off he was ill so this delayed us somewhat and we were not very happy about it anyway eventually they swapped him for another navigator Dickie Ward he was a good lad, and we were put on the list to go to Stuttgart our first op. This was a disaster completely from start to finish. We took off, we hadn’t been flying long and it was fairly obvious our DR compass wasn’t working properly, anyway we pressed on and it was our first trip it was a press on type anyway after hours and hours it seemed to me we didn’t find Stuttgart we found a glowing under a cloud, a red glow in some clouds and thought this must be it so we unloaded the bombs there which was, whether it was Stuttgart or not I don’t know any way we tried to, we left the bombing area tried to fly back to the UK still wondering all over the place with this DR compass which wasn’t working properly we hadn’t flown long before bomb aimer checked the bombays and found a thousand pound bomb had been hung up so we opened the doors and we let that go I don’t know who got it but we were over Germany so it didn’t really matter a lot, we carried on flying wandering all over Europe I should think and after ages and ages the rear gunner said he thought he saw the coastline underneath, well that’s great so approximate course to England we kept flying and flying and nothing happened and a bit later on he spoke up and said “I’m sorry skipper, I was wrong the first time I can clearly see the coast below now” so then the skipper said, “well that’s alright but I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel to get across the Channel now” so he said “I’ll tell you what…” he got on to all of the crew and he said “we've got to make a decision, you can either bail out, in which case you would be prisoners of war, or we can try cross, get across the channel and if necessary we will have to ditch, what do you want to do?” universal decision we'll try and get across the channel so off we went over ten tenths cloud we flew on and we flew on but nothing was happening then suddenly through a break in the clouds we saw a beacon flashing now I couldn’t establish where it was, and all this time I’d been trying to get my radio set to work to find out where we were unfortunately every time I wound out my trailing aerial it was shorting out and I couldn’t get any power on the transmitter and very little on the receiver. So anyway we got to this beacon and the skipper flew round and round it and said “we’ve got another decision to make” the first decision wasn’t a good one but anyway we had found this beacon and we flew round it and he said “the only thing is, if it’s a land marker you can bail out but if it’s a sea marker you’ll drown, on the other hand if I decide to ditch the aircraft thinking it’s a sea marker, and it’s a land marker there’s going to be one hell of a bang” so anyway flying around this beacon trying to make our minds up suddenly an airfield lit up beneath us and there it was full runways, perimeter the lot marvellous we’ll land there so we went round to land wheels down, wheels wouldn’t come down, bomb aimer tried the flaps, the flaps wouldn’t work so we overshot. We came round again and this time we blew the wheels down with a compressed air tank that was behind my head in the wireless compartment and they fortunately came down and locked and with the flight engineer pumping like mad on the flaps he managed to hit the ground and roll along Well I went to the back of the aircraft open the door and I saw a chap on a bicycle with a blue torch and I said “aye mate where’s this then?” and he said “Westonzoyland “, I thought what the hell we have landed in Holland it sounded Dutch to me “Westonzoyland!” I said, “where’s that?”, he said “Somerset”. So, there we were got some sort of transport went to the Flying control tower saw the chap that had put the lights on and he said, “the first time you went and you didn’t land, I put my hand out to switch off the lights off again but I thought I’d give them one more chance”. It’s a good job he did, so we thanked, we ran to and thanked the beacon crew because I had been firing red, red greens the pilot had been saying ‘hello darkie this is spot null tear calling darkie’. Flashing the nose light SOS doing all sorts while we circle this beacon, when we went to the flying control we saw a Warrant officer in charge of the signal flight who’d been to the mess for a couple of mugs of tea for him and the WAAF that was working on the radio set, as he came through the door with the two mugs of tea, there was the WAAF under the bench unconscious; the same thing had happened about a fortnight before and an aircraft had called up in distress and then they hadn’t been able to contact it, gone across the Bristol channel crashed into the Welsh mountains , now she thought she was listening to a ghost when she heard us so she passed out under the bench so she was a lot of help. But anyway, it all worked out very nicely, but we had to stay down there for three days while they flew ground crews down from Coningsby to fix the aircraft everything was wrong with it, took them three days to fix it then we went back to Coningsby and then we went on leave. Now in some ways Harry our navigator, this sick navigator saved our lives because while we were on leave they did the Nuremberg raid and the Berlin raid and lost 95 aircraft as you know, so that was very fortunate. After that we carried on and did another thirty three ops, I think it was and then we finally finished our tour of ops, I was posted down to 17 OTU Silverstone as an instructor and stayed there until I was de-mobbed in 1946.
MC: So, you did thirty four ops, more than normal?
AA: Yes, but that was because some bright spark decided that French targets it’s easier than German targets so you had to do three French targets to count as one operation. That’s why it’s got the thirty three, thirty four.
MC: So, you did a few daylight raids?
AA: Yeah, we did about three daylight raids I think but I didn’t believe this business about being easier, because one night my crew, were stood down and the wireless operator in S-sugar was sick so I was told to fly with them. Pilot officer Hallet In S-Sugar so we took off, well after the briefing I was quite pleased in a way that I’d been put with this crew, because it was ten minutes over France flying bomb sites but this was a doddle so off we went got to this flying bomb site just across the channel no flack just lots and lots of searchlights and fighters circling round the outside waiting for us and as we went into bomb they were attacking us three at a time, I have never corkscrewed so hard in my life as I did with Hallet. But anyway, before we had taken off on the ops I was talking to a couple of chaps and the crew wasn’t with me, I was talking to two wireless operators , well three actually Kemish, Donahue, Sutton there was four of us talking and when I came back from the ten minutes over France, Kemish and Donoghue were no longer there, I think there was twenty two aircraft lost on that ten minutes and two were from our squadron and both of them wireless operators, I was chatting to them before we took off, so that was that anyway apart from the normal flying after that there wasn’t a great lot to talk about . I remember one occasion when I was working on the set, suddenly there was a brilliant white flash and I wondered what the hell it was it was like daylight in the cockpit I jumped up on the step stuck my head out the astrodome just in time to see a wing sailing past with two engines on it, and the propellers going round. An aircraft had blown up just in front of us, and the skipper pulling back on the stick trying to miss it so we didn’t hit the damn thing, anyway apart from that I think the rest of their trips were fairly quiet .
MC: So, were most of these daytime raids were following the invasion?
AA: That’s right, yeah, I can show you if you like?
MC: So, this is your logbook?
AA: Yeah.
MC: Its very neat!
AA: Yeah, there’s not a lot in it, I think about eight German targets, and the rest were French but as I said they weren’t as easy as they said they were and eventually of course they rescinded that.
MC: So most of them were fairly uneventful, apart from the ones you told me about?
AA: That's right. Yeah.
MC: So, following the operations you did where did you go then …. what did you do then following when you finished your ops?
AA: Well as I said I went down to 17 OTU at Silverstone and was there until I was demobbed in 46.
MC: Yeah, so your first flight obviously was err….
AA: Traumatic!
MC: Traumatic to say the least even though you didn’t meet any enemy action, during your other operations did you come across any other…you must have come across flack?
AA: Well we saw the flack, it didn’t bother me much it was quite interesting in daylight black puffs it looked very harmless you know it didn’t look dangerous at all. That was my air force career yeah.
MC: So, what happened, so then you did, you did your 19 RFS?
AA: After the war I joined the RAF volunteer reserve because I still couldn’t get the RAF feeling that I liked, I loved being in the RAF to be honest so I joined the RAFVR and used to go down at weekends first to Liverpool, at Liverpool and then we were over at Oulton Park the other side of Birkenhead then finished up at Woodvale, Southport flying at weekends then back to work as a civilian on Monday morning, a fortnights camping every year and that was great until it finally packed up in about 1952 I think round about then. So, then I joined Blackpool Gliding club and got a glider pilots licence just to keep flying and then when that packed up the next flying I did was on the back of my son’s microlight. We bought a microlight aircraft between us, he got the pilot’s licence and I just sat in the back flying around Coningsby, again. When the squadron moved across from Coningsby back from Skellingthorpe we were detailed to fly the aircraft but lot of stuff came by road when we landed we were given a dispersal for the aircraft I left my flying boots at the back near the Elsan and when we had lunch and came back to the aircraft my boots had gone so somebody helped himself, I went to the stores to see if I could get a spare pair and he said “What! I can’t let you have any more flying boots what if you don’t come back from an op I will be one pair of boots short”, which I didn’t like the attitude there so I wouldn’t buy them, he said I could get them on the 664b and I could pay for them, so I thought I’m not damn well paying for them. Just as well id done because when I was demobbed I had to pay for them, six guineas I think.
MC: So, you were demobbed in when? When were you demobbed?
AA: In ‘46’ Whitsontide ?
MC: What did you do after the war then?
AA: I went back to my old job for just six months, oh I’ve got a procession of jobs now and then I went to for work for the Associate of British cinemas as an assistant cinema manager, well a trainee to start with I stuck that for a couple of years and then I left there and went, I was married by then with a son and digs were hard to find so when the area manager came to see me , well first of all I was at Barrow in Furness as assistant cinema manager then I was transferred back to my home town of Lancaster then he came in one day and said “we are transferring you to the Regal Rochdale” and I thought well no you’re not, finding digs was difficult, I packed the job in and went to work for the Shell Oil company down at the Heysham Refinery in the materials office and unfortunately after a while there was a clash of personalities between me and the materials superintendent so I left there, got a job managing a shop in Morecambe seaside town selling pottery, glass wear and fancy goods, and looking out the window I saw all these salesmen coming past in their cars and I thought that looks like a good life much more interesting than this. So, when a chap came in selling me paper, wrapping paper and paper bags and things, or trying to I mentioned to him, and he said, “well come and work for me”, so I did and I stuck that for a couple of years. But I soon found out that being a salesman on the road wasn’t as good as it looked it was hard, hard work you’d have a good week one week and you couldn’t go wrong, the week after you couldn’t sell a thing, no it wasn’t good at all. So, I scanned the local paper and saw a job advertised at the North-west electricity board in the offices so I applied and got the job; in fact, I got two jobs at the same time. One was a job at the what was it…. the aircraft factory Lostock near Bolton I’ve forgotten the name of the aircraft now, well anyway that was one job and I also got the North-west electricity job as well. One would have meant changing home again so I stopped in Lancaster and took the electricity board job and I worked there for eight years until I got bored. I worked first of all on the cash desk as a cashier and then debt collecting and doing all sorts of things. Then I moved into the offices because it looked more in my line in the records office but I then found that I only had three day’s work on a five-day week, so for two days I was scratching around with looking for something to do and I soon got bored with that. So I applied again to the civil service and to NAAFI I saw an advert for NAAFI so the civil service said I could be taken on as a temporary employee it would take some time to become permanent but the NAAFI sent me a railway warrant to come down and see them which I did and of course because I’d worked initially in the Coop as a grocer I knew a little bit about it and then I’d managed the shop in Morecambe as a shop manager they offered me a job as a NAAFI shop manager and I asked could I go to Germany and they said yes we can send you to Germany but your wife will have to stay behind because we can’t accommodate her, I said in that case it’s no good to me, so the chap who was interviewing me said, “well would you be interested in going further afield, in which case your wife could join you ?” I said, “well yes I would” my ears pricked up then and he mentioned North Africa so I thought yes that will do for me, so I signed on there and then went back home, gave my notice in to the electricity board and on the appointed date went down to London, London Airport first day with the NAAFI London Airport flying out to North Africa. So, they sent me fortunately to Casto Benito known as RAF Idris. There was a little family shop there on an RAF station which suited me down to the ground I became an honorary member of the Sergeants mess, and I was in my element there was Air Force all around me but I didn’t have to take any orders because I was civilian and that was fine I was there three year, I had a three year contract I came back to the UK in 1964 , sent me on leave and I stayed on leave and the weeks went by and the months went by and I was still on leave but my salary was being paid into the bank so I wasn’t too concerned . Anyway, suddenly one Friday about four months after I’d being home I got a telegram ‘come down and see us’. So, I went down to see them and apparently two of the officials had been going to lunch and one of them had said “by the way what are you doing with Atkinson?” he said, “well he’s abroad isn’t he?”, “no” he said, “he’s at home on leave.” So that sparked the telegram, when I got down they said would I like to go back to Tripoli again this time to take over the main shop in Tripoli centre which dealt with the Embassy, all the Army, RAF units, any ships coming into Tripoli harbour I dealt with them, so I took the job on and I found it was losing £30 a day was this shop I took over, I didn’t like this so I put measures in to put this right, and in no time at all we were making a profit and this was noted at NAAFI headquarters. So, then it was decided that we would pull out of Tripoli altogether close down, the troops were coming home there were to be no units left in North Africa. So I had to close the shop down and reduce all the stock, close it down came back to the UK went to the headquarters in Peel Court in London for an interview and they said we would like you to attend a board which I did, I didn’t know it at the time but it was a commissioning board for what they called ‘Officials of the Corporation’ because when you became an official you had to be commissioned in the Army as well , on the Army reserve so I thought any how that would do me so I was successfully interviewed particularly with my record of making this shop profitable and they sent me for eighteen months training up and down the country various places, I went down to Plymouth for the ships I went to Scotland for bomb exercise I was all over the place learning about NAAFI official duties and eventually I was qualified and was sent to Anglesey. So, I was on Anglesey for eighteen months and then I got a notification they wanted me to Germany to Bielefeld so I was posted across to Bielefeld for three years.
MC: So, did you have a rank then?
AA: Well the thing is I had a road accident on Anglesey, I stopped my car to post a letter walked across the road and came back and saw a heavy lorry coming towards me so I leaned into the back of my car out of its way and put my foot out and it ran over my foot. Anyway, so when the paper came through with my army commission as a Second Lieutenant in the RASC or logistics core as they call it now, I had to send them back, I said I’m sorry but in view of my injury traversing rough terrain is no good to me because I knew that they sent the district managers on exercise with the Army with the acting rank of Captain in Logistics core, I thought well I can’t wander around hopping about like this to see over NAAFI contingent so as I say I sent the paper back and said I’m sorry that’s it so I didn’t get my commission but I was an honorary Second Lieutenant and when I went to Germany I was given Officers quarters and attended officers Messes and that sort of thing but officially I was a civilian. I did three years in Bielefeld, came back to England posted to Lincolnshire cause my wife came from Boston so this was fine, I spent three years here and then was posted again to Germany to Osnabruck for another three years that was fine I enjoyed that, holidays on the continent down to Italy and all over the place and then came back here again and then in 1982 there was a restructuring programme and all district managers of aged sixty or approaching sixty were dispensed with, but it was a pretty good deal they said that…..I was called down to London most surprised to learn that my service was no longer be required after a certain date when I was sixty in September but that I would get a pension from NAAFI based on the assumption that I reached sixty five which was fair enough so I was retired early at sixty and that was it, and I’ve lived in Lincoln ever since .
MC: I’d just like to go back to your earlier days when you did Air Gunnery training at first didn’t you?
AA: Yes.
MC: Did you, you got your…. so, it was your first brevet?
AA: Yeah that was at Stormy Down.
MC: And you got the Air gunnery brevet.
AA: I did.
MC: And what rank did you get there?
AA: Sergeant.
MC: So, you were Sergeant yeah.
AA: Yeah
MC: So, when you did your Wireless operating training, your brevet changed did it?
AA: Err it was still…. I can’t remember when it changed to be sure, but I know it was changed to an S , Signals but air gunner initially.
MC; That’s brilliant Arthur thank you very much for that. This interview was conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewer was Mike Connock and the interviewee was Mr Arthur Atkinson the interview took place at Mr Atkinson’s home in Lincoln on the 23rd June 2015.
AA: Syerston for afternoon tea in Hanson’s and then back to work on a Monday morning.
MC: And this was where?
AA: This was in the volunteer reserve from RAF Woodvale, flying Anson’s. It was great. When I was recalled for my aircraft retraining from RAF Ringway, Manchester I went down at ACRC; Aircrew recruiting centre in London for various things one of them of course was a medical and when we had the medical we found that I had a weak left eye so they said “we will have to get you a pair of special goggles with a lens in the left eye”, fair enough, but unfortunately when my Squad was posted on, the goggle hadn’t come back and I had to wait for them so I was kept back one week when I should have been with my original squad. Then my original squad went on and were posted to India on flying boats.
MC: Oh right.
AA: And because I was kept back a week on a different squad, I finished up on Bomber Command, but if I hadn’t finished up on Bomber Command and being posted to Coningsby I wouldn’t have met my wife. [laughs].
MC: Yes, that’s right.
AA: Because one of the first places I went too was the Gliderdrome in Boston dancing. and met her there, and once we’d met we were together for sixty-three years.
MC: Goodness me.
AA: She died in 2007.
MC: So where did you…you obviously went to Coningsby and from Coningsby you moved on to Skellingthorpe?
AA: Skellingthorpe yeah.
MC: That’s where you did the major part of your tour?
AA: I did all my tour at Skellingthorpe yeah.
MC: All your tour at Skellingthorpe yes!
AA: Yes, all the incidents of interest that I can remember on the ground were at Skellingthorpe, apart from losing my flying boots. We had a mid-upper gunner. He was a Canadian and he used to ride around on a bicycle and he finished up, he got bicycles for the whole crew and we all rode around on bicycles, where he got them from we don’t know but he painted his apple green and I was flying, I was riding down to flights one morning with him got to the MP post and the MP pulled him over and asked him where he got his bike from, apple green, he finished up being court martialled but he said he’d been in a pub in Lincoln, he missed the bus back to camp and somebody offered him a bike so he thought better than walking so he said “I bought the bike and cycled back then I found out next morning it was a service bike but I’d paid good money for it so I painted it apple green” and he stuck to it and got away with it. We all in best blues at the court martial ready to give evidence to say what a good bloke he was, including Bob Acott but they only called Bob and the navigator in and he got away with a severe reprimand but they took him off flying while he was under court martial in case he got killed, they could court martial him if he got killed [laughs] but he was a good lad.
MC: So, the skipper and who, who got the awards you say?
AA: Pilot Bob Acott got the DFC, and Trevor Ward, Ken wrote a book about he got the DFC.
MC: Oh yeah, yeah
AA: Oh dear, we told Ken about the episodes when we one a flew across country to Scotland and our flight engineer Bob, Bill Rudd said to Bob, we were at 20,000 feet on across country one of these two cross countries that were before we went on ops, and Bill Rudd said to Bob “Bob, if you get injured when we’re flying over Germany, you know you’re damaged in any way, who’s going to bring the aircraft back?”. Bob said, “well I haven’t given it a lot of thought really.” He said, ‘Well I think I should!’ He was like that Bill was, so Bob said, “all right fair enough, you can if you like.” He said, “in that case I should have a go at flying it, shouldn’t I?” So, Bob Acott policeman steady said, “you’ve got a good point there.” So, the two of them changed seats at 20,000 feet, then the aircraft stalled it just fell out the sky with the flight engineer in the pilot seat, you know the only left-hand control in a Lanc. Oh god, I clipped my chute on, whether this is what finished the navigator I don’t know, he clipped his chute on, I said “which way are we going out”. I said, “well we can’t go out the front because these two silly buggers are trying to change seats again” [laughs]. Of course, in the back of your mind there’s always that instruction ‘you do not leave the aircraft without the Pilots instruction’ but I thought he’s in no position to instruct anyway, every time they got it in a level keel pushing the stick forward, you know, it stalled again and it kept coming down and we were coming down like a falling leaf. Anyway, they finally changed seats then the flight engineer was running up and down the aircraft finding what had gone wrong, when we found out what had gone wrong it was the trimming tabs on the elevator he’d kicked them as they were changing seats again in, up so that…. Oh dear. And Bill Rudd the same flight engineer he had a chop WAAF, he waved to this WAAF every time he took off, then one time he was waving to her, and waving to her stretching his head round to wave to her and his intercom plug came out as we were tearing down the runway, to take off, so when Bob Acott said ‘full power’, nothing happened Bill wasn’t on intercom we had a full bomb load so I heard him say’ full power’ and eventually he took his, he had to leave belting…we just staggered off Doddington Road end. Bill Rudd, another time on importance we were diverted to Ford, or Tranmere as the sea approached the runway instead of putting full flap down, he took flap off and I could swear the props hit the sea, oh that was our flying. This chap was posted to our crew at Winthorpe and we very soon realised a little bit, not very good we said to Bob, we should get rid of him Bob, this chaps not, well somebody’s got to take it. But he’d been thrown out from the previous crew he’d being in, they’d wised him up and got rid of him. Bob Acott wouldn’t
MC: So, you were always having to compensate for him?
AA: He should have got a medal, the Iron Cross, First Class, he did his dam to kill us [laughs] but we even survived Bill Rudd, I hope that’s not on tape.
MC: It is, [laughs]
AA: Oh dear, a bit of a lad. I saw him later on in the war, I’d been down to Boston with the wife because she came from Boston and I was in Lancaster, I’d driven down in the car and on the way back we were diverted through Harrogate that’s where he lived and I thought he was so keen a medal, was Bill he wanted to climb in the wing and put the engine fire out with a fire extinguisher and stuff like that. Anyway, I suddenly saw a big board and it said, ‘W. Rudd Demolition Contractor’ and I thought this is too much of a coincidence, so I took the address and followed it round and there he was in the garden digging his garden with a …talking to a chap at the same time, I said “Hello Bill, how’s it going? “He, looked at me, he didn’t know, he hadn’t a clue who I was till I provided him what had happened, oh dear that was the only time I saw him. But Dougie May our bomb aimer, I suddenly decided Dougie and me got on very well so I suddenly decided I’d like to see him again if I could so I got the telephone directory out and looked through all the names in Birmingham, he lived in Birmingham and the first one I tried it was his wife answered I said “I’m looking for a chap called Douglas May that served in Bomber Command during the war”, she said “yes, my husband did”, I said “well just go and ask if he remembers Acott’s shower” so that’s exactly what she said, and he was back on the phone in two seconds, went down to see him and I had him and his wife staying here in this house when the memorial was opened we went and I’ve got a video of us marching, the first march we ever did when the memorial was opened, but unfortunately he’s died since.
MC: Did you get to see any of the other crew, the skipper and that did you meet up?
AA: No I didn’t unfortunately no, because we all went to different, I was posted to Silverstone, I know Bob Acott went down to Swinderby, Dougie went somewhere in London I don’t know where the hell he went and of course Trevor Bowyer left us after twenty ops because it was his second tour, and I don’t know what happened to the mid-upper, Al Bryant after his court martial because he didn’t fly with us again.
MC: Oh, didn’t he?
AA: No. presumably went back to Canada, but Dougie was the only one that I met.
MC: So where was the skipper from?
AA: The skipper was from London, he was on the Metropolitan Police. Anyway, I never offered you a cup of tea.
MC: Oh no, you are alright thank you. Thanks lovely thank you Arthur.
AA: So that’s all right then!
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Arthur Atkinson
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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.
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AAtkinsonA150623
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Mike Connock
Date
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2015-06-23
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00:40:54 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Pending review
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Carmel Dammes
Description
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Arthur Atkinson was born in Lancaster, and worked in the local Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator and served at RAF Ringway before being posted to RAF Coningsby and later RAF Skellingthorpe with 61 Squadron. His first operation to Stuttgart was a disaster when the compass failed to work and they landed at RAF Westonzoyland. Over all he completed three daylight and 31 night time operations. He met his wife while in Lincolnshire. After he was de-mobbed he continued to travel with the Royal Air Force as a civilian managing Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. He also continued his love of flying, joining various flying schools and eventually buying a microlight with his son and flying around Coningsby again. Arthur settled in Lincoln after retiring.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
England--Somerset
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Bridgend
61 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
crewing up
Dominie
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Proctor
RAF Compton Bassett
RAF Coningsby
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Ringway
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Weston Zoyland
RAF Yatesbury
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/230/3375/AColeFJ160719.2.mp3
ab9ef48b04d6a65a31fd44e8b43830ce
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cole, Frederick
Frederick Cole
Frederick J Cole
F J Cole
F Cole
Description
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An oral history interview with Frederick Cole.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-19
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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.
Identifier
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Cole, FJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PL: Right ok, my name is Pam Locker and I am in the home of Mr Frederick Cole of ***. So, if I can just start by saying thank you very much indeed on behalf of the Bomber Command Memorial for agreeing to give us this interview. So Mr Cole if you would just like to start wherever you would like to start.
FC: Yes, welcome to my world, I've been a very very proud man and very lucky that I can say what I am going to say. Now it starts off when I, my first memory in fact when I was a child, they called me Teddy I suppose like a teddy bear of something or other but that goes back to 1922 when I was, my Father was then a lecturer at Derby technical college and we'd gone down on the motorcycle and sidecar to help his friend, also a lecturer whose bungalow backed onto the sea. I remember my Father up on top of the roof right then it's a blank a complete blank. And then I was living in a council house in Uttoxeter Road Derby and that's where the life really started to uproot and come out and surround everything I touched and thought of and my memory starts flashing about and I always recall discovering what the world was about, the invisible tentacles that encircle so many facets of life and memories to cherish throughout the life but going into more serious main, some of the early experiences are flooding back....I won't go into all that detail they are far too long and the loss is embodied in the stories which I have already prepared which are available elsewhere. I would like to go to.........Derby right where I so many deep rooted memories, many delightful beyond repeat, many exciting endeavour to knock you off your seat and i go then into the first days at school and learning teachings I'm learning as others have accumulated and at school in days when educational standard were clear and easy to understand and not influenced by external things I remember early morning prayers and one hour a week scriptures and I was a Christian, Jesus meant the world to be, and wherever I had been whatever I had done I never ever needed to be prompted or reminded right despite all the pomp and glory that now heist behold the world, now religion to me it is a disgrace right, I go back, and then I think ....in my formative years as long as I stayed at school [you would get a trick] and a trick would automatically mean you would have to take a degree it was that consequence that really held me back from getting into the Air Force because I otherwise would have done because I had to start studying for a degree and in fact I was studying a Bachelor of Commerce degree then the brigade, the Air force was in the background I was going in and listening to lectures and that had to continue until I had the results come through and as soon as the results came through I must have almost immediately in fact I was packing a bag and getting ready for a journey which i just couldn't get a hold of what was going on it became an integrable spiders web right, and I remember saying goodbye and boarding a train to a hotel alone not far from Lord's Cricket ground there the reality of life became clear being equipped with the uniform and everything that went with it right, and that's when you start the learn a few lessons and listen and think because, I clearly remember things you get from instinct I full of enthusiasm I remember we used to march down to London Zoo and were fed in the visitors dining room which was obviously were all the monkeys were, and I always remember thinking they must have had a damn good laugh watching us queue right these sort of things stick in your memory apart from that the other thing that you see the the difference in the makeup of people the very strong highly well to do ones were the ones that would collapse when given the chance right, and I always remember in my enthusiastic removing of a mark off the wall and then having have to clean the whole bloody wall right, these sort of infiltrations enter your mind and err that sort of thing it's like in a centre of a spider's web right, and I being near, one of my relatives, one of my father's sisters I remember as Auntie Lynn, I thought I'll take the opportunity and I'll get on the tube and say hello right, but when I got there and saw them the two gits they called boys I immediately said to myself never ever again will I do that! Go and stick my neck out, no stop and that was the life and every time something transpired I would thread, I’d get into this web and trying to probe forward to another time and as time moved on transitions immediately came to being, the one thing i remember so well is the term religion. Religion has ceased to have the meaning it used to have right, it was a title give to what I call a load of self made groups pursuing their own ideals many playing on fear or jealousy and anything to make life something they seize for their own image as to what they want to do, that was to me a gross distortion and influenced every move that I made thereafter and I err then spread my wings going into the more [inaudible] my instincts I enjoyed, I was the first to do a solo in the Tiger Moth right, but I dropped I cod because of this wonderful lad and i didn't think I should waste the petrol right at the end, nonetheless I finished that and I ended up and this is where the memory dries up, and after there I [pause] that is where you get confused it was after flying training, yes because I was through first I had about three weeks leave of absence before then reporting down to official training I think at Newquay right, I remember we used to have lectures on flights and also medical checks right, and all that sort of thing. I was a loner, I didn't go drinking or anything like that but on occasion when they had a dance that was a school I had a dance which was to be the most famous dance with a girl right and the dance was called the Anniversary waltz afterward said goodnight and I went my way and she was with a gang who went their way so these things have memories, but in those moments I would walk around, look around my mind would always be ticking away seeking something i never saw what but i knew somewhere there was an invisible intangible lot of communication right, reaching every part of my brain wherever and it’s intriguing to me that and everything else and later when I finished my career in the RAF and I had a wonderful time doing so many different things as so often when I'm free I would be stopped from going with silver wings and bomber force behind you right there would have been a commotion but I'm very proud of that and i was asked to join another special flight at Marham, where they were into taking all the goodwill flights anywhere in the world after the atomic bomb had eliminated the tiger force. But despite all the prevailing I then had my son, right and a degree which I would finish which would take another two years but in that time as you have seen by my stories that precede this my wife brought a fuss?, and all these distractions in all this time .... all intermingling and mixing into one channel was then I got, passed the degree that I got Rolls Royce where had already being accepted subject to passing my degree and again the strings, the invisible strings that surround us life what do I find my placement at Rolls Royce is straight into the engineering side of life and have all the books, stories concerning entered development and I used to after a while take down the minutes of all the development engineering meetings held every Monday at Three O'clock Lord Hiest? was once in the chair and I remember him looking at me as i had just picking up the flow ‘who the hell is he’ to me it was a start of a very complex detailed career because I used to write the minutes of everything that was said but to do that properly again it was a matter of making sure the individual's comments i was setting out really intended what any impression was, the way it was worded and very often I enjoyed them slightly different wording to to making the purpose and the significance more appropriate to the problem in that way I raised through the ranks I knew all the time spend I was present when the original five bedstead was taken into the air. Wing commander Hayworth tethered you of course and I used to take a hundred engineers who I had trained and refined to Farnborough the technician of their day every year again a stimulating experience which inetrmiglied with the aspects and the relationship in practise between the air force and processes and the one now with industry. There was a big difference in the sense that in the air force with the kings recreation and the ap3 or a3 something anyone with a commision knew what that they should do, could do shouldn’t do could do....right I wanted to finish off my career right and I really retired myself from the raf because everything was been done to prevent my departure, but I stuck my neck out an intriguing way again an unplanned by product but a wonderful way I could not find the sort of job you used to have to fill in the absence of the five pound a week grant from the Air force and I couldn’t find anywhere locally which is for the tax office or whatever so i went down to Hereford and tried down there and it was very much the same but I knew Hereford very well from my RAF career excetra , [pause] and ah yes I did eventually get work to give me the five pounds a week it was a drivers mate with Bulmers cider and I think it was forty five when was with Bulmers cider, a younger driver an ex-paratrooper with this lorry loaded with the,,,arr i was learning the re experience of how other people think how mother nature again brings back an intrex right and I find with myself again embodied in these tentacles of experience and understanding how wonderful and it was the best form of training I could have possible have in the light of the career that was to follow in the managerial status at Rolls Royce so there right from the word go you have these tentacles and as long as they all stay together they all fuse into one and go on and on and on and now I reached the point where I don’t think I want to get any further any deeper involved than I am now I am right I know my numbers nearly up, right and when I look at things and plan there's one thing that’s clear the build up from my first memory that I've always had their intangible invisible threads running right back through a system and everything back to where it all started. I have already said for me religion, with all the pomp and circumstance and the guilt through their interaction being accountable for more deaths per day than any other combined source as far as I am concerned so I bid the world goodbye and as I roll together all of the courses that have been there, roll them all together right together i then just to lay there i just...and simply with a hand pull up a blanket and I bid goodbye, I won’t be long and when I die I want no pomp and ceremony but I would want two songs to be sung the ' We'll meet again' which used to be what I used to write on the bottom of letters to my wife when I went off on a mission when I didn't expect to come back and the second 'The Anniversary Waltz' which you already know having been told about which aculminated in the culmination of my dearest wife the most precious treasured woman that a world has ever had. with that I say now goodbye goodbye and Dorothy dear we will be together again, it won't be long. I want my ashes to be stirred up with your ashes that are over there, shaken and then scattered around the cottage in North Wales where we spent so many happy later years or Tenerife in Los Cantes by the cliffs again for the same reason, whichever will be ...that’s all I ask I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
PL : Please don’t apologise.
FC: There's column right a memorial stone and all that I have said and felt and thought what I would like to think is embodied within and the intention of my part to feel the community spirit again, this time through, and that’s all I have to say.
PL: Thank you very much Mr Coles for sharing your thoughts with us, they are very precious.
FC: So many memorabilia, Rolls Royce and other things the Lancaster books and the history of the RB211 over there and many more memorabilia and and nearly all this you see here was presented at me at various stages, and various activities which I chaired I used to have it all everywhere, and now it’s not really seen but there’s inscriptions on the base of most of them.
PL: Wonderful
FC: The turbines we used to use but now...I used to clean it all...
Pl: Hard work!
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Identifier
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AColeFJ160719
Title
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Interview with Frederick Cole
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:37:35 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-07-19
Description
An account of the resource
Frederick Cole grew up in Derby and was studying for a degree when he joined the Royal Air Force. He met his wife at an RAF dance during the war. He completed his degree after the war and had a career with Rolls Royce.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Derbyshire
Contributor
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Carmel Dammes
57 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/208/3347/ABellJ151127.1.mp3
7b483681ed81283f499c2686831f3ef9
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Title
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Bell, Joyce
Joyce Bell
J Bell
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. An oral history interview with Joyce Edna Bell nee Langdon (b. 1921 Royal Air Force), Jim Taylor's RAF Memoirs 1932-1939, documents, clippings, correspondence and photographs. Joyce Bell served served as a clerk in 1 Group Bomber Command and Married <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/17">Oliver Bell</a>. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Joyce Bell and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2015-11-27
Rights
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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.
Identifier
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Bell, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JG: The date is the 27th November 2015 I'm James Greenhalgh from the University of Lincoln, I'm here with Mrs Joyce Bell at her home in Ranskill and she is going to us about some of her memories from World War Two.
JB: My name is Joyce Bell and I will be 94 on the 21st December 2015, I was born in Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire I was Joyce Langdon when I joined the WAAF in December 1940 aged nineteen I did my training at Harrogate the Grand Hotel and Pannal Ash College. My first posting was to Hucknall, Nottinghamshire in January 1941. No.1 Group Bomber Command, I worked in central registry and later in the transport department, my soon to be husband Oliver having a ride back from Aiden at the fall of France from the German Army was stationed in Lincolnshire No.1 Group Bomber Command when his friend was posted to Hucknall but having just married I asked Oliver if he would take the posting in his place which he did, on arrival at Hucknall I processed Oliver's documents and I noticed he was single and I told the clerks 'he's mine' [laughs]. During the summer of 1941 I accompanied several officers and went to assess Bawtry Hall near Doncaster South Yorkshire with a view to moving No.1 Group there I was deemed imminently suitable and the whole head quarters moved there after it was vacated by the Army. I worked in an office near the gatehouse at the side entrance of Harworth Road checking vehicles in and out, we were billeted in huts in a field near by and our commanding officer kept a donkey for his children in the area where our ablutions huts were cited, in the middle of the night in pitch black we would hear often the donkey bray and know that someone had bumped into him on their way to the facilities. Thursday nights were make do and mend nights we had to sit in and mend our clothes however we were allowed off camp occasionally I remember standing with three other WAAFs on Bawtry Road waiting for a bus to Doncaster to go to see a film at the cinema when a man driving a horsebox pulled up and asked if we would like a lift as he was on his way to Doncaster we gladly accepted his offer and with that he jumped out of the cab and went to the rear of the vehicle so to let the back door down, inside was a horse standing in a stall and we four girls jumped in beside the horse the driver dropped us off right outside the cinema where people were queuing the expression on their faces when the driver lowered that back door and four WAAFs jumped out was hilarious. I used to see Oliver each day for signing various documents and we started our courtship in September 1941 by December the 21st we were engaged and on May the 21st 1942 we married at Harworth church after one month of marriage Oliver was sent to Moncton New Brunswick Canada where soon after he was made a Warrant officer highest of the ranks I left the RAF on the 12th December 1942 as by now I was expecting our eldest daughter Josephine I went back to live with my parents in Stortford Road Hoddesdon Hertfordshire and Jo was born on the 18th March 1943, when Jo was three months old I went out to St George New Brunswick to join Oliver taking our new baby with me I travelled by ship on the Andes a fivesome banana boat leaving from Liverpool my parents travelling with me to see me go, by the end of that year Oliver took his commission and was a Pilot Officer the lowest rank of the officers he was then transferred to Middleton Nova Scotia in December 1943 where baby number two Maureen was born in June 1944. I recall meeting up with several airmen and sailors on that journey by train between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia who assisted me in getting a first class ticket and then helped looked after Jo while I went for a meal. Oliver and I lived in an apartment which belonged to Mr and Mrs Finney at the bottom of Mrs Finney's garden was a cemetery where RAF personnel were buried how I wish I could write to the relatives of these young men and say I had witnessed their burials. I would send food parcels back to my parents particularly dried fruit to make a Christmas cake as food was in short supply. I’ve got the right page now...in short oh yes it's here in supply back in Britain. Oliver and I left Canada in December 1944 we separately but in a flotilla of sixty ships I had to pay £100 for this journey as by now I was an officer's wife for this amount I was given a cabin to myself and the children whereas I had shared a cabin with three other women and children on the way out. I remember the convoy being halted just off the coast of Ireland and depth charges being dropped as it was suspected that were submarines in the area. Oliver disembarked at Liverpool I left separately in the south where Oliver's father came to meet me he travelled with me back to London and I was taken to my own parents in Hoddesdon the following day. I spent the next few months with my parents we were highly amused by my toddler Jo's Canadian accent especially her words "liberty parties’ [in a Canadian accent]. Oliver was sent to RAF Binbrook where he was promoted to Flying officer he was then posted to Lindhome at the same time as one of my Aunt and Uncle's were due to leave the ROF bungalow at Mattersey Thorpe to return to Waltham Abbey . Oliver applied to the ROF to see if we would be allowed to move 10 Bader Rise Mattersey Thorpe which we were. It was close enough for Oliver to travel each day and life was wonderful . I moved up from Hoddesdon on the Friday and on the Monday Oliver was sent to Barrea in Italy September 1945, oh dear. Oliver was promoted to Flight Lieutenant whilst in Italy November 1945. After six months apart Oliver finally left the RAF in 1946 last day of service 13th of June 1946. Now neither Jo nor Maureen recognised this stranger bearing gifts when he returned home and Oliver had to win them over for a final time. Err do you want this other on here or just up to there?
JG: Please continue.
JB: I can not remember children having identity cards but of course you did need ration books for food, food was scarce but we didn't starve people swapped rations with each other. I would swap tea for margarine etcetera. So we never had bananas only home produced fruit, couldn't cook chips, wait a minute, we couldn’t cook chips , we had no fat. I kept Bantams for eggs as rations were one egg per week but it was difficult to find hen food. Rationing was worst after the war for about five years also fuel was scarce hence me always out collecting wood. Oliver left the Wimbledon Century school aged sixteen and joined the RAF he was sent to Cranwell Lincolnshire for training date of enlisting 12th of the first 1932 failed his Pilot's training because he was colourblind did a gunners course in 1936, he was a wireless electrical mechanic by trade after training at Cranwell he was sent to Aden 4th of the tenth '35', 12th Squadron where he flew in a Scopwick Camel aircraft as a gunner he came back to England 1939 and was on one of the last boat loads to leave France when the German invasion was imminent, his brother Ken was at home when Oliver walked in minus his cap and sleeve and jacket ripped but Oliver never said how it happened after four years away his mother said 'hello when are you going back?' [laughter]. Oliver finally left the RAF in 1946 to begin a new life working as a post office engineer based at Gainsborough, we never returned to the south of the country but spent many happy years in North Nottinghamshire and went on to have a family of five. That’s it.
JG: Marvellous.
JB: What you say, you have heard enough? Don't say anymore!
JG: No no...so I was just wondering what you did when you were in the WAAF?
JB: Well I was clerical, I was er...everybody that came to the camp had to report to me first because I used to have to take all the particulars, where they came from where they were going to, what they were doing, so that’s what I did.
JG: And, what are your best memories of the WAAF then?
JB: Happy days, they were happy days we all enjoyed each other you know, it was very good not nice that the war was on but there you are we made the best of it.
JG: And what sort of things did you do for fun? You mentioned going to see...going to the pictures and things.
JB: Well, that was about it we didn't do a lot we used to have a camp dance once a week, of which I don't dance so I used to sit there like nothing so anyway my husband took a chance on me and he said would you care to dance and i said ' Well I'd love to but I don't.' He said 'Well neither do I so that makes two of us.' So off we went jogging round [laughs] oh dear. Yes.
JG : So what did Oliver do? Obviously he was on the planes, but what specifically did he do?
JB: Come on help me....
Daughter: Was he a Wireless operator mum?
JB: Yes, yes, ummm and then just trying to think when he took his commission what he was still doing electrical, well he was an Electrical mechanical engineer in the RAF that's what he was.
JG: And can you remember what sort of planes he flew, what sort of missions he did? Can you remember any of that?
JB: He flew, he used to fly on what they call the Sopwith Camel aircraft
Daughter: And, there was another one I think .
JB: Of course I didn't know him then
Daughter: Hawker Hart?
JG: Oh yes..
Daughter: I think that's what it means it says Hart.
JG: Yes, it certainly looks like it doesn't it.
Daughter: We have got photographs of him on the plane
JG: Right, so what were his duties then when he was in Canada, what did he do while he was in
New Brunswick do we know?
Daughter: I don't know , I don't know.
JB: No, he was, I don't know what he did out there, I think he was just sort of putting his knowledge generally to help the flying community out there.
JG: Ok, so was he responsible for training and things like that?
JB: Yes I think he was up to a point, he did a bit of that he used to teach the young apprentices you know.
Daughter: I don't know whether any of that tells you anything?
JG: Ok so this was his logbook, oh I see this will be some really useful stuff to have a look at for the guys who do the scanning. Oh wow.
Daughter: You'll see on the back it says he's 'the handsome young man on the wing'.
JB: : 'except to his mother' [laughs]
JG: That's marvellous, modest as well.
Daughter: Yes, and there you are it said 'Oliver Bell flew in this aircraft in Aden 1938.
Jg: Oh yeah. Wow this is something .
JB: Was that the old Sopwith Camel as they called it?
Daughter: One was the Hawker Hart....yours truly in the rear cockpit
JB: Oh just his hair...[laughter]
JG: Oh that's brilliant
JB: Those were the days before I knew his of course.
JG: Sure, yes is he wearing a Pith helmet? He looks like he's got a pith helmet on oh wow. Right actually I had no idea there was so much stuff actually, if you take that for me so we don't get them mixed up so I'm going to potentially have to get someone to take a look at it so we can get some of this scanned in so I'll have a word with Pete about that. So I'm just interested you talked about rationing and I just wondered if you had anything more to say about rationing? You said about you didn't have bananas but I'm quite interested in it.
JB: Well everything was rationed, you didn't put any of that on here did you?
Daughter: No.
JB: One egg per week if you were lucky.
Daughter: Oranges? Were there any oranges mum?
JB; No, no oranges but it was worse after the war the rationing. It was just a bit of margarine, no butter a bit of margarine you had to make do, you know we were starved half the time to be perfectly honest yes so.
JG: So did it stay, did it stay...when you said it was worse after the war did it stay bad for a long time after the war?
JB: Do you know, I can't remember about five years I think, umm as I can recall yes we had a ration of one egg per week so of course you talk about you couldn't even do a bit of baking cause you needed eggs and oh it was dreadful yes.
JG: And what sort of things did you make then, what sort of stuff could you have then? I'm fascinated by it.
JB: [Laughs] Oh dear, I'd hoped I'd put it all out of my mind. Oh I don't know.
Daughter: Did you grow things in the garden Mum?
JB: Oh yes we grew our own, we did have a garden and we did grow vegetables which helped alot yes we certainly did but as we've got here the rationing was worse after the war than when the war was on and fuel of course was very scarce. You got one bag of fuel to last you you goodness knows how long donkeys years you know.
JG: So when you were at home then and you were sort of like trying to keep warm did you do things differently? What did you do differently?
JB: Well I used to go collecting wood.
Jg; Right.
JB: Of course we lived in Mattersey so the woods were near, I used to go everyday with a big bag and collect all the big chunky bits of wood I could find that's what we used to do to you know keep us going I tell you.
JG: And even though you were not in one of the big cities did you still have to blackout?
JB: Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes you daren't show a crack of curtain they'd be down on you rattling on your door 'lights showing' you know [laughs] yes it wasn't fun times really although we made what we could of it.
JG: So if you were, when you were blacking out did you have...what sort of things did you have in the home? What sort of things kept yourself entertained?
JB: Well there was always something when you’ve got children.
Daughter: You had a radio though
JB; Oh yes we had a radio, yes.
Daughter: You used to listen to plays on the radio….
JB: Yes.
Daughter: I remember that.
JB: But as soon as it was getting dusk we had to put the blackout curtains up and not be a light if they saw a light one of the wardens walking round would be rattling on your door and tell you you have a so and so light shining oh it was murder.
Daughter: You used to bath...I was born in 1951 I was number three daughter and was we always bathed in a tin bath in front of an open fire weren't we?
JB: Yes, oh yes you were.
Daughter: When we were little all the rest of the house was freezing cold frost on the inside of the windows and everything.
JB: Yes those were the days [laughs].
JG: I'm just fascinated, I'm actually fascinated by what it was like living with things like the blackout and the rationing
JB: That's right, well like I say we had a garden so we used to try and grow as much as you could to help you know, I mean it was ...
Daughter: What about the days Mum when you were on the poultry farm? Didn't you go in one morning and find that all the poultry….
JB: Oh yes a bomb had fallen out, they were all in cages battery type in these big sheds and I used to work there . I went one morning and i could see this huge shed it was on a skew-whiff as they call it and thought what on earth's wrong here and when I looked the chickens were creating and there was the biggest hole right near the chicken shed it must have frightened those chickens to death they were squawking their heads off. Anyway I used to use it for cleaning them out and filling it up but honestly it was so I suppose from the air to a foreign thing it was a long building you know have ago at bombing that.
JG: So do you have....do you remember bombing raid?
JB: Oh yes, yes yes.
Daughter: What about back in Hoddesdon Mum when you were at home with your Mum when you could see across to London?
JG: Oh yes that used to be dreadful when there was a raid on London, oh we used to stand at my mother's back door you could see the flames used to light the sky up the sirens used to go on, we said 'there's a raid on London' poor people it used to be shocking it was like one huge big fire you know you used to stand and watch poor people. You were half starved ‘cause you didn't have much to eat and then you had to put up with things like that. Oh it was dreadful.
Daughter: Where did you used to hide Mum? Where did you used to hide?
JB: Oh in the cupboard under the stairs [laughs] it was as safe a place as any my Mum was a real panicker with anything you know and as soon as the siren went 'come on come in here' you know so.
JG: So did you always shelter underneath the stairs or they had hadn't given you a Anderson or an Morrison shelter or anything like that ?
JB: No, no no no we didn't have you see London people did more but I suppose living in the country they won't bother you know people in the country so we make do our own safety devices
Daughter: Did you not shelter under the table the kitchen table?
J: Oh yes, my eldest daughter that lives in Australia was i remember about two years old at the time and we used to say you know when the siren went, she used to know really that we were going under the table and when we used to get under she used to 'shhh don't make a sound’ [laughs] I don't know if she thought the pilots could here us .
JG: And where did any of the ...obviously the chickens shed got hit but did they ever accidently bomb near you when you were living near London?
JB: When I was what?
JG: When you were living near London?
JB: Yes
JG: Did you get any bombers that came close?
JB: Oh yes yes we used to hear them and see them going over you know, and you could always tell because they had a different sound to the engine from the English you could always tell a German bomber from a English one .
Daughter: I think Grandad mentioned walking along the new river and somewhere had been bombed one of the houses or something didn't he?
JB: Yes
Daughter: And there was all stuff up in the trees, clothes in the trees I think Grandad spoke about that.
JB: Yes, they weren't fun times not at all, let's hope we never have anymore wars
JG: Yes absolutely, crikey
JB: Well I'm not saying you know, I enjoyed it apart from it being what it was I enjoyed my days in the WAAF you know it was quite nice to mix to get out with people i'd been an only child I quite enjoyed the company.
JG: So what had you done before the war then?
JB; Well I worked on this poultry farm
Daughter: You also worked in the Home and Colonial
JB: Oh yes to start with I worked in a shop the Home and Colonial shop .
JG: Oh right
JB: It wasn't my cup of tea I never wanted to but you had to have a job and that was it and then someone said about this farm this chicken farm and I said that’d suit me be err and I went to see and I got the job I enjoyed it, not everyone would have liked it but I did ,yes.
JG: So I was er I was also going to ask er hang on I've completely lost my train of thought
JB: Oh it's alright I'm taken you back have I?
Daughter: Were you going to ask about the ROF bungalow ?
JG: Oh yes it's one of the things I've got written down here.
Daughter: I thought you were the Royal Ordnance Factory it belonged to the Royal Ordnance factory
JG: Ah right
Daughter: And my Uncle who had come from the south was sent, he was sent up here to work at this local Royal Ordnance factory at Torworth.
JG: Right
Daughter: And at the same time that he was being sent back down home which was about two years after he came that’s when mum and dad were looking to find a place up here so they asked if they could take on the bungalow that auntie and Uncle had lived in and the ROF agreed because Dad belonged to the RAF and they said yes he could have it.
JG: So er I'm also interested in you talked about sailing to and from Canada and I'm just wondering what that was like really?
JB: Well...
Daughter: How did you cope for nappies Mum for the babies ?
JB: Oh I saved up before i went all the material, cotton wool and I cut up sheets and all sorts and make do you know and when I got to Canada belive me it was a different world from what I'd left oh it was lovely to be in a bit of peace gorgeous out of London and it was lovely yes it wasn't fun days believe me, ye.s
Daughter: You got a very modern pram in Canada didn't you for your babies?
JB: Oh yes, absolutely.
Daughter: A bit different to back at home.
JB: Yes
Daughter: Just looking for those photographs? I don't know what we did with those....
Jg: Oh nice picture.
JB: Oh[laughs].
JG: When's that...oh 1942?
Daughter: Yes the year they got married.
JG: Oh apparently that’s the week after you got married.
Daughter: Yes yes that was 1935 that Dad's friend sent that.
JG: Oh i see ye.s
Daughter: Right these are the ones in Canada, so they had a fairly modern pram there.
JG: Oh nice [laughter][ it looks cold
JB: It was cold but it was lovely not the cold we get here it was nice and crisp you know not that sort of wet cold that we get here.
JG: Yeah, oh look at the pines yeah,. lovely to look at yeah
Daughter: That says St.George New Brunswick on the back.
JB: Oh yeah St George New Brunswick .
Daughter: So that gives you some idea...oh this was oh that was part you can see the house in the background.
Jg: Oh that is nice.
JB: Lovely veranda all around, ooh the houses out there they cater for cold and hot weather you know in the summer i remember .you can sit out on the veranda and oh lovely
Daughter: They were kind of centrally heating weren't they mum in Canada.
JB: Yes sort of underground, underfloor heating yes.
JG: And you presumably hadn't had central heating at home had you not?
JB: No no
JG: Very few houses had...
JB: No get up on frosty mornings scrape the snow ice off the window [laughs].
Daughter:That was a street party at the end of the war in Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.
JG: Oh yeah look at the houses they are absolutely classic 1930's houses.
Daughter: Well that's where my Grandma and Grandad lived in one of those.
JG: Right oh. that's marvellous there's some great stuff there
Daughter: Yes and a lot more of Dad you know a lot more of his Squadrons and all sorts of things.
JG: Did he often talk about his time in the RAF?
Daughter: No he didn't and I wish now you see Dad died eighteen years ago.
JG: Right.
Daughter: And I wish I'd would have asked 'cause if you look in the distance you'll see what I've done this year I've been I have sat in a Lancaster for a taxi ride in the position that Dad would probably have been in.
JG: Well I have, you see that radio that's just behind that picture you're holding I have one of those
Daughter: Oh yes.
JG: My Grandad pulled it out of the back of a Short Stirling at the end of the Second World War.
Daughter: Wow, well this year I really wanted wished Dad could have been here but Mum's done her best she's told us a lot and look at this Dad saw these operas in Rome whilst in Italy 1945 -46.
JG: That's a hard life that must have been hard living in Italy and watching operas
Daughter: There you are Dad went and saw three operas
JB: Rigoletto and La Boheme oh wow...crikey i bet that was nice the thing that's amazing about that is it would not have been the thing you really got the chance to do would it.
Daughter: No, absolutely not .
JG: It must have been amazing
Daughter: Yes I mean he travelled all over the place he certainly did.
JG: You'd be amazed for various reasons I've interviewed lots of veterans widows because I'm quite interested in other aspects of it not just the Bomber Command stuff and you'd be amazed how little a lot of the lads talked about their time in...
Daughter: No my Dad didn't he never to talk he never used to say
JG: It's quite fascinating how little people have spoken about it and when we've interviewed veterans how glad they are to be able to tell us about it actually at last
Daughter: Yes
JG: They feel like somebody's interested.
Daughter: Interested yes, I think this is absolutely wonderful Wimbledon Education Committee Wimbledon central school for boys 'Oliver Herbert Bell entered this school by examination in September….
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABellJ151127
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Joyce Bell
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:35:25 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Jim Greenhalgh
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-27
Description
An account of the resource
Joyce Bell grew up in Hertfordshire and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in 1940. She served as a clerk in 1 Group Bomber Command where she met her husband and she travelled with him to Canada where he was posted.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Carmel Dammes
1 Group
ground personnel
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force