by Pam Weaver
After a meal at seven, they were told to have an early night but first they had to learn how to make up their beds with knife-edged corners and smooth sheets. For some girls it took several goes before they could get it right.
Lights out was at ten but that didn’t stop the girls talking until someone opened the door at ten-thirty and barked for ‘Silence!’ Everyone settled down after that.
First thing in the morning after breakfast, they were told to report to the stores. On the way, they passed a sort of makeshift garden. Someone had planted anemones and grape irises in a large tyre. They looked very pretty and added a nice splash of colour to the grey surroundings. Peggy was thrilled. ‘Oh look,’ she cried. ‘Enemas. I love enemas.’
When they reached the stores, everyone was issued with her uniform. Skirt, shirt, tie, cap and stockings came first.
‘Blimey,’ one girl gasped out loud. ‘Look at these lovely thick brown lisle stockings. They’re just the sort my granny likes to wear.’
The room was filled with giggles.
They were even kitted out with standard issue underwear in the form of a couple of suspender belts, brassieres and three pairs of knickers. If the stockings were awful, the knickers left the girls speechless. They were huge, stretching from the waist to the knee and so roomy that two people could have worn them together. The colour itself beggared belief. Khaki.
‘Boomin’ passion killers,’ Peggy whispered. ‘Don’t you just love ’em.’
‘And the colour of diarrhoea,’ Arlene replied from a bit further up the queue. ‘At least no one will notice how scared you are if the Germans come,’ another girl called Joan quipped and everybody laughed.
Frankie was about to say something else about the infamous knickers but she was pushed along the line to collect a pair of black lace-up shoes, a gym kit, towels and her own personal mug and cutlery. Everybody was supplied with sanitary towels, the type known as bunnies because of their long loops, and a sanitary belt. Frankie staggered under the weight of her kit bag but she was subjected to another medical and the nit-nurse before she was allowed back to the hut to put everything in her locker. The most difficult part of the whole exercise was having to pack up her own clothes to send them back to Aunt Bet. From this moment on, it seemed that the army owned her body and soul.
*
The next four weeks were a challenge. The new recruits spent a lot of time marching on the parade ground. Frankie managed quite well but some of the girls were confused. More than once when the sergeant bellowed ‘Right turn’, she would find herself facing a girl who had turned left, but as the weeks went by, they smartened up and started to look like a proper army unit. Afternoons were spent having lectures on anything from the history of the British Army to the causes and prevention of venereal disease. For some, it came as a bit of a shock to talk so openly about such things. It soon became obvious that some of the girls had never even kissed a boy. Frankie had had the odd ‘end of the dance’ kiss, but she was fairly innocent as well. Of course, living on a farm, she had seen animals mating as they did it freely, but the terrible pictures of syphilitic sores and the ravages of gonorrhoea came as a real eye-opener.
‘I’m never letting a man near me again,’ Arlene declared as they made their way back to the hut.
Twenty
August 1940
The days in training camp sped by, punctuated by kit inspections, polishing shoes, ablutions and having intelligence tests. One of Frankie’s tests was to write an essay on her life before she’d joined the ATS. As she picked up the pen she toyed with the idea of writing something entitled ‘My working day as a florist’, but somehow she ended up writing about motorbike scrambling. The more she wrote, the more vivid the memories became. She could almost taste the earth splattered in her mouth as she tackled a deeply rutted and muddy hill, and in her imagination she could feel the thrill of staying on the bike after a jump onto firmer ground. As she wrote about it she experienced again the warm sense of pleasure she got from stripping down an engine, finding a fault and rebuilding it. The examiner called time and she realised she hadn’t properly answered the question. She’d made no mention of losing her mother or going to live with Aunt Bet. She hadn’t said anything about Uncle Lorry being in a reserved occupation and too old at fifty to be called up anyway or Ronald, refused call-up on health grounds, or even poor Alan, already mentally damaged by the war. She laid her pen down and sighed. What an idiot she’d been. She was bound to get a low mark. She’d probably end up in the laundry or something.
To mark the end of their four-week training period, the girls were asked to say which branch of the ATS most appealed to them. Some postings were more popular than others. One of her room-mates, Joan, hadn’t done terribly well in any of the aptitude tests so she was quite happy to be enrolled as a mess orderly. Arlene was articulate and experienced in social etiquette so they wanted her in head office. Frankie and Peggy were to be sent to No.1 Motor Transport Training Centre in Camberley, Surrey. Peggy was to train as a driver and Frankie was to be a dispatch rider. Apparently the role of the ATS girl was to change. Now that so many men were called up, the army had decided to try an experiment. Women were to be trained to take over important non-combatant posts and they were the guinea pigs. Frankie was overjoyed as it turned out that her essay had alerted her superiors to the fact that she was already an accomplished motorbike rider.
On the last night of their four-week training period, there was a chance to let their hair down at a dance in a hall requisitioned by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute, known more colloquially as the NAAFI. They had no other clothes because they’d had to send everything home when they joined up, so all the girls went in uniform. The dance band wasn’t brilliant but they could hold a tune and the lads from some neighbouring barracks had turned up as well. Frankie met a nice chap and enjoyed quite a few dances with him interspersed by a drink or two from the bar.
The girls had agreed to stick together on one table, so everybody came back to the table when their dance was finished. Peggy was on her own for a while but then a good-looking, fair-haired chap asked her to dance. Frankie was thrilled for her.
Frankie excused herself from her partner and went back to the hut before the end of the dance. She was tired and wanted to get a bit of an early night although once the others came in, they’d probably want to talk for a while. She had the wash room to herself which was a luxury and as soon as she’d put her pyjamas on, she finished off a letter to Alan. He’d been in Ramsgate for seven weeks and then they’d moved him to Graylingwell, which was near Chichester. It wasn’t as far for Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry to go to see him but with the travel restrictions in place and petrol now off limits for private use except in dire emergences or for a restricted occupation, it didn’t make it that much easier. In her letters, Aunt Bet told her that he was much the same as he’d been when they’d seen him, but when Frankie wrote to him she pretended that he was the same old Alan. In this letter, she told him about her new posting and although she couldn’t mention that it was in Camberley, she told him it was a lot nearer to where he was and that she hoped to see him soon.
All at once the door burst open and Peggy came flying in. She was in quite a state and almost hysterical. She threw herself onto her bed and sobbed into the pillow. Frankie was appalled. Jumping out of bed, she padded over to her friend.
‘Whatever happened?’ she gasped.
Peggy turned her head to look at Frankie, her eyes red and blotchy and a watery snot dripping off the end of her nose. ‘Oh Frankie,’ she blubbed. ‘I tried to stop him but he’s done it.’
Frankie’s mouth dropped open. ‘What do you mean, he’s done it?’
The last time she’d seen Peggy, she and the fair-haired chap were happily dancing. Peggy seemed relaxed enough and as far as Frankie could see, he’d seemed all right. What on earth had happened? What was she saying? Had the rotter forced himself on her?
Peggy reached in the drawer of her bedside locke
r and pulled out a huge handkerchief. ‘He’s done it,’ she repeated. ‘I felt him. I felt his … his, you know … his thingy.’
They could hear voices coming their way. The other girls were coming back from the dance. Peggy blew her nose noisily. ‘What am I going to tell my mother? Oh Frankie, this is awful.’
In the event it was only Arlene and another girl who came into the hut. They gathered around Peggy trying to console her. ‘I think you’d better tell us exactly what happened,’ said Arlene. ‘Start from the bit where you left the dance.’
Peggy took a deep breath. ‘We went outside and he walked me as far as the perimeter fence,’ she began. ‘The guard said he couldn’t go any further.’
‘That’s right,’ said the other girl. ‘The men aren’t allowed near the women’s billets.’ She squeezed Peggy’s hand. ‘So what happened then?’
‘We walked a little way beside the fence and then he asked me if he could kiss me,’ Peggy said beginning to cry again. ‘And then …’ She gulped as she struggled for the words.
‘And then?’ Arlene cajoled gently. ‘What happened then, darling?’
‘He put his hands right down over my bottom and …’ the words were rushing out now, ‘he pulled me closer and when he kissed me he pulled me really close to him and I felt it move.’ She put her hands up to her face and covered it in horror. ‘You know, his what’s-it … his do-da.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘Oh lummy-charlie it was enormous!’
There was a quiet moment as the girls looked from one to the other. Frankie was biting her cheeks in an effort not to laugh out loud. Nobody knew what to say but it was obvious Peggy didn’t understand the first thing about the facts of life.
Frankie put her arm around Peggy’s shoulders. ‘I don’t know much about having sex,’ she began. ‘I’ve never done it, you see …’
‘Well, I didn’t want to,’ Peggy wailed.
‘I know people can do it with their clothes on,’ Frankie said gently, ‘but you’ve still got your great coat on.’
‘And it’s done up,’ said one of the other girls.
Arlene spluttered and stood up from the bed.
There was a second or two of silence before Peggy gave them a grateful smile. ‘Is that true?’ She looked up at the other girl who nodded vigorously.
Peggy turned back to Frankie. ‘So he didn’t …?’
‘No, of course he didn’t,’ said Arlene, walking away. ‘Blinkin’ men. That happened to me once. I thought it was his pencil.’
Twenty-One
ATS Training Camp, Camberley, Surrey, September 1940
Frankie was given seven days leave before she had to report to Camberley and her first priority was to see Alan.
Graylingwell hospital in Chichester was, in fact, several buildings set in an impressive landscape of gardens with a sixty-acre market garden and two farms. Alan was due to be discharged the following week so when she arrived, he was working on one of the farms. He certainly looked a lot better than when she’d seen him the last time. Back then he was exhausted and couldn’t concentrate on anything. He still looked a little strained and he sometimes had that far-away look in his eye but he greeted Frankie warmly.
He took her to the hospital shop which had a small area converted into a tea room. Alan explained that by working on the farm he had earned some tokens which he could only spend in the shop, so he insisted on buying Frankie tea and cake.
As they waited to be served, she noticed that he was still restless. He leg kept jigging up and down as he sat and he fiddled with the sugar server.
‘I work with the pigs,’ he announced. ‘Got a good breeding system here.’
‘That’s good, ‘Frankie said.
‘We’re self-sufficient,’ he went on. The tone of his voice was flat and without enthusiasm. ‘Pretty good when you think of the size of the place.’
Frankie nodded her approval. ‘What do you think of my uniform then?’ she said proudly.
Alan looked at her as if he’d only just noticed. ‘ATS.’
‘I’m off to Surrey in a few days,’ she went on. ‘I’m going to be a dispatch rider.’
He made no comment and the tea arrived. He took his mug and slurped loudly.
‘Are you going back, Alan?’ she asked cautiously.
‘I am in the army.’
‘Where will they send you?’
He shrugged. ‘The Doc is trying to get me a desk job.’
‘That sounds like a good idea.’
‘I’m not a coward!’ he snapped. His hand jerked and he slopped his tea onto the table.
‘I never said you were,’ Frankie said. She cut her cake in two and picked up one half to eat.
Alan had pushed the whole of his cake into his mouth in one go. ‘They’re discharging me on Friday,’ he said splattering her face with crumbs.
‘Will you get any leave?’
He shrugged again and then helped himself to the rest of her cake on her plate. She watched him wolf down the rest of his tea in one go, her heart broken. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said banging his mug down and standing to his feet. The chair scraped along the wooden floor. ‘Thanks for coming.’
She stared after him as he crashed out of the room, the door banging behind him. Whatever had happened to him? Where was the gentle fun-loving Alan she’d grown up with? When did he become so uncouth and bad-mannered? She felt something trickle down her cheek and realised she was crying.
A woman leaned over the table to take away his plate and mug. She gave Frankie a sympathetic smile. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said. ‘It’ll all come right in the end.’
*
Back in Worthing there was a chance to catch up with her friends. Barbara was doing well although she did look a bit tired. It wasn’t until she got home that Frankie realised that most of their conversation had been about her. She had chatted about Alan and the ATS. She felt bad now. She’d forgotten to ask about Barbara’s aunt or how Barbara was getting on in the canteen. She should have asked if her friend was thinking about joining up as well but in her excitement everything else had gone out of her head.
The next day, she and Doreen went to the pictures. Doreen seemed different and yet the same. She looked very grown up and sophisticated with her hair swept up in a new style. The film was a pleasant distraction from everything around them (there were even sandbags against the cinema walls), but the Pathé News was an unpleasant reminder with footage of the bombardment across the English Channel which had followed in the weeks after Dunkirk. It was frightening to realise how close the Germans had come, and only a few miles from where she lived. Their guns, thought to be captured French railway guns, had a range of thirty miles but a combination of heavy smoke screens and RAF fighters in the skies resulted in little damage to the British shipping. As the news faded, there was a ripple of applause in the cinema.
When they came outside they stopped off at some tea rooms.
‘How’s work?’ Frankie asked after they’d placed their order. She was determined not to make the same mistake with Doreen as she had with Barbara, only talking about herself.
‘Not brilliant,’ said Doreen. ‘Mrs Waite is just about ticking over but I get the feeling it won’t be for long. People don’t have the money for luxuries like flowers We’ve been busy making up wreaths for the local funeral directors using silk and paper but once they have enough to keep going, I think the shop will close.’
‘What will you do then?’
Doreen shrugged. ‘I’m still applying for the services.’
‘You still want to be a Wren.’
Doreen nodded. ‘I do.’
‘What about you and Ronald?’
‘There is no me and Ronald,’ Doreen smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking but it’s not going to happen.’
‘Why not?’ said Frankie. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you and he’s a nice person.’
Doreen seemed embarrassed. ‘Surely you know,’ she began.
‘Know what?’
Doreen leaned forward and spoke in a confidential whisper. ‘Ronald isn’t interested in me,’ she said. ‘We had a long conversation soon after we met. I love him to bits but not in the way you’re thinking about.’
Frankie was puzzled.
‘Oh, Frankie,’ said Doreen. ‘Ronald bats for the other team.’
‘What team?’
Doreen sighed. ‘And I thought I was supposed to be the innocent one,’ she teased. ‘Your cousin likes girls, but only as friends.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Frankie, although she didn’t see at all.
Twenty-Two
The billet at Camberley was luxurious compared to what Frankie was used to. Set in the lovely Surrey countryside, the building had been a boys’ prep school before the war. As soon as she arrived, Frankie was given blankets, sheets, towels and soap and taken to her new sleeping quarters, a room which had once been the boys’ dormitory. She made her bed just as she’d been taught and put a photograph of Aunt Bet and Uncle Lorry on the bedside locker.
She hadn’t brought the doll but she had packed her mother’s tin. It was empty. She left the two buttons on top of the chest of drawers in a little pot which had once been used for loose face powder. She had decided that the tin with the yellow star would be useful for her hair grips.
The girls who had joined her were a lot like the others. ‘You won’t believe the hassle I had in getting here,’ one girl cried. ‘Every train from here to kingdom come was chock-a-block with soldiers.’
‘I guess they’re getting ready for the invasion,’ said Frankie.
‘That’s enough of that kind of talk,’ the Squad Corporal interrupted and Frankie jumped.
The girls were all kitted out again. They had all the usual stuff including the passion killers, but this time they had smart uniform slacks as well and they were issued with grey dungarees to wear when they were doing vehicle maintenance classes.