Love and War in the WRNS Read online

  I had a long letter from R. 2 days ago, a p.c. from you, and also a letter from Paul, who seemed rather miserable. I will try and write to him soon, but maybe you could send him a wee note HMS Sheffield c/o G.D.O, saying I have had his letter and am very fit and well?

  Gosh, it is very hot here – I must now run along, and get this posted and censored. I hope you’ll get it in 3 weeks as usual – meanwhile, you have the cables, anyway.

  Heaps of love anyway,

  Sheila

  Office of C in C Mediterranean c/o G.P.O

  7th July / 42

  My dear Mama – I hope you got my 2 cables I sent and an air mail letter card telling you not to worry – all is well here – one can scarcely imagine that Rommel is on the back doorstep though I’m sure our poor solider boys know what it’s all about! We are all working very hard, but manage to get in a lot of bathing and parties thrown in. I am going to write you a long air mail letter soon telling you about all the things we have been doing recently which I may not tell you about at the moment. It will make you laugh tremendously as it did us at the time!

  At the moment it is terribly terribly hot, in fact it is unbearable to go out in the middle of the day. Mary Dugdale and Kay Way are with me, and we are all very happy, but we have heard from Sybil Hoole that she is miserable. I don’t know quite why she ever came as she’s never been terribly happy since she arrived … I’m afraid I am going to miss some of your mail as I have just heard quite a lot have been lost recently, I hope you kept the counterfoil of the money under our p/o (whichever it was) you sent me, as otherwise it will be down the drain …

  Do please note my new address – not that it is new as I have always been C in C – I never was NILE – we are all appointed there for disposal. We are all just covered in bites and the flies nearly drive you mad. I found a flea in my bath last night, so left it to drown. Lo and behold after 5 minutes in water, it was still alive and kicking when I let the water out! I give up entirely!!

  No more now.

  Heaps of love

  Sheila

  Office of C in C Mediterranean

  c/o GPO London

  13/7/42

  My dear Mama –

  Four of your letters arrived at once, with 6 others from various people, so I am well occupied. To begin with, note and remember my address – it is my permanent one and I never have been NILE. My letters are censored by me myself, but none of yours are censored at all, why I don’t quite know. You ask me if I want any papers – well, it would be fun now and again to read English papers and know exactly what import they attach to goings on out here. We all love so much to have news from home! Especially to see pictures of the countryside and so on …

  … I can’t tell you how hot it is, really rather horrid and the glare is terrific, but we go to bathe in a lovely salt lake here which is really very beautiful. There are a lot of trees and green grass and it makes us all feel rather homesick. I went out sailing on Saturday which was great fun and yesterday, Sunday, we went to a cocktail party on board a hospital ship, where we met some most interesting people – unfortunately I left my sun glasses at the US Club on Saturday, so went back to fetch them and met a Brigadier and his friend a Major (they were at the cocktail party) who took us out there in their car and plied us with drinks. This Major knew Bert and had seen him only a few weeks ago. It was such fun to chat over our experiences with him. Mary Dugdale was with me – she is so lucky, a very great friend of hers is at GHQ and she is going to ring him up tonight – maybe he will come down and see her. I am rather unlucky, as all the people I know here are scattered – dear little Robin Chater is in the desert somewhere. I am rather worried as I’ve heard nothing of him for 2 months. I do hope he is OK. John Pritty has returned to the desert, I heard from him last week. Jack Roughton is here no more, but up North, in fact none of my old friends are about at all …

  Life in Ismailia seems to have been fun, but terribly hot: ‘you have no conception of how hot it is, the sweat just pours off me when I am sitting still.’ The flies are ‘appalling’ as are the bugs: ‘I have found 2 bugs in my bed since I arrived, but cut them in half with scissors thus ending their little game.’ They are living in a large YWCA, more ‘like a hotel and it’s all so English, informal and friendly [that] we all get awfully homesick’, run by a Scots couple, and set in a big garden of trees and palms. There is a good Indian bazaar, and she has bought a pretty necklace, plus a present for her mother – a turquoise and seed pearl necklace and an elephant hair brooch, and some gazelle-skin slippers, powder, Revlon lipstick and hair grips for Rosemary. But ‘everyone is so dishonest out here, it is unbelievable – and horrid people follow you in the streets trying to sell you things and like the flies they won’t be shaken off either. It is most trying.’

  There are very few white women, but ‘1000s of men, it must be awful for them’, and although there are lots of army sisters, they are ‘ugly and old – until we came along of course’. She, Mary and one or two of the ‘less flighty ones’ are ‘terribly tired of a lot of these men, who are so obviously out for a good time, whoever they are with, and you have to be careful in sorting the chaff from the oats. We just can’t think how some of these girls are out with different people each night and seem to enjoy it! We thoroughly enjoy life, all the same.’

  The Sweet Water Canal and ferry – opposite the YWCA in Ismailia.

  Despite being terribly ‘tired of being asked out by every Tom, Dick and Harry’, she, Mary and Rachel Charlesworth, who was on her OTC in Greenwich, are having a very ‘gay time’, meeting up with old shipmates from the ‘tub’ and all Robin’s division, apart from Robin ‘stuck out in the front lines’. She hears ‘consistently’ from John Pritty and feels ‘rather awful really, as though I did see a lot of him, I explained fully my position and hoped I wasn’t leading him up the garden path’. It has never been clear to me if it is Paul or Jaap to whom she has lost her heart. To complicate matters, Maureen, John’s sister, has arrived in Egypt, although Sheila hasn’t yet seen her.

  Sailing is a good distraction from the heat and the bugs (‘found 3 bugs on my mosquito net yesterday and 1 this morning!!’) and she and Mary frequently go out with two of her fellow Cypher ‘boys’, Tony and Putty. On the work front there has been a ‘revolutionary change with the new Principal Cypher Officer changing the watches:

  4 Wrens and 1 man on one watch, 2 Wrens and 3 men on another, 1 Wren and 4 men on the other watch. I am the latter, which means of course, that we all have to work very hard, but I feel in a way it is a teeny weeny compliment to me that I have been put on the smallest watch, but of course, it is only because I am a fast typist, and hardly anyone is much good at this art! I am on with Tony and Putty, and Lambert, my 1st D.C.O. [Deputy Cypher Officer], and we get on very well together.

  Many things in Egypt are expensive, and although her gramophone is an ‘absolute blessing’, records cost 7s or 8s compared to 2s 10d in England. Laundry is also expensive, as is shoe whitening, but nail varnish is cheap, as are more local goods. With two guineas birthday money from her mother, she is buying some ‘leopard skin slippers, a service handbag and cotton dressing gown … Yes, I think I will be able to get them all for that. Some things aren’t dear!!’ She is having great difficulty with the parcel home, however, as sugar is now rationed and she feels very bad about it.

  Her last letter from Ismailia is very bubbly:

  Office of C in C Mediterranean

  c/o CPO London

  3/8/42

  My dear Ma –

  I am so terribly happy in this new place – I just love the life. I have made new friends and remet old ones, and it is all such fun. Tomorrow I am being driven up to … to see Com. Maloney, Com. Williams is taking me, and we are starting at 7 am in order to miss the heat. We had such fun there last week, Mary and I went out to a hilarious dinner party at their house – the guests amused us by performing acrobatics and ballet dances after dinner (in all this heat!) and then 7 of us packed int
o a tiny 2 seater Austin 7 and went for a midnight swim. The following evening there was a dance in the YWCA – I walked in to see John Williams of the Signals, who came out with us and is Robin’s best friend. We had a tremendous chat. Lo and behold, 2 days later, I was informed there was someone to see me, and who else should it be but Robin, John and another man from the Signals! How nice it was to see them all again. That evening Robin and I went out to the French Club to dine, unfortunately it was my ‘Dogs’ and ‘Middle’ watches but we went shopping the next morning and had a hilarious time buying stockings for John Williams’ girl friend in England! On Saturday I was out with one of our DCO’s and his Air Force friends, dining and dancing. Sunday, yesterday, I went to see ‘Bitter Sweet’ on board a hospital ship here – I had already seen it, but I didn’t mind, except for the fact that their sound track was bad and it went a bit flat in parts! However, on the way home, the boat broke down and there we were, drifting downstream, but luckily King Farouk’s uncle’s yacht was at hand, and they lent us a boat to come home in. It was a perfect night, millions of stars and the wake of the boat was brilliant with phosphorescence.

  …We are hoping to have a midnight picnic in the desert soon, Robin and John are going to arrange it. It all arose out of a remark of mine saying I liked tinned stew – they spend all their nights in the desert when they come over here as there is no accommodation – they take their little signals car – the Jeep – find a good spot and lie in their fleabags under the stars. It is so nice seeing them again – Robin and I hope to celebrate our birthday together as we are twins but for 3 days (I take seniority!)

  …Well, as you can see, life out here isn’t at all bad, but we work hard too, and the conditions here really are rather appalling. Rachel has just come bursting in like a whirlwind, so there’s really not much chance of writing any more coherent paragraphs! (She is most hurt that I have said this and says she hopes you won’t think her a horrid girl!!) With lots and lots of love, and don’t worry, all is well and we are very happy.

  Sheila

  Mohammed Ali’s yacht which they ‘bumped into late one night when returning from the hospital ship, Maine’.

  On 8 August most of the Wrens move back to Alexandria; on the return journey they stop to take turns having donkey rides. Sheila now finds herself living in a convent, ‘a charming place, and the eight officers have a sweet little house of their own – the convent is enormous, and tho’ not old, seems completely medieval’. The nuns wait on them at table and clean their rooms and Sheila feels:

  … most awkward … At night the nuns lock up at about 9pm and everywhere is quiet and dark. We have 2 Sudanese watchmen, and they patrol about inside the grounds with fierce Alsatians to see nobody breaks in. My 1st night watch here I went on at 0400 and they had forgotten to shut them up, so of course up they rushed growling and barking ferociously – giving me a nasty fright. However, the men dashed up soon after and hauled them off!

  Of Sheila’s friends, Mary remained behind in Ismailia, Diana Booth has scarlet fever and is being looked after in Haifa by Italian POWs –‘doesn’t it seem a funny war?’ – and Sybil Hoole is in in hospital with poisoned bites. So she is feeling a little bereft.

  Never downhearted for long, she is soon telling her parents of her latest ‘craze’, mangoes: ‘they are MARVELLOUS – but terribly messy. You cut them round the middle and twist them open, then comes the tricky task of getting rid of the stone, which is enormous. In the end you finish up by being juice all over.’

  The return to Alexandria also coincides with one of John’s periods of leave (he has been promoted to commander), and he surprises her by collecting some ‘glamorous undies’ she was having made. She had been ‘loath’ to contact him ‘in view of the myriads of letters he keeps writing me and his efforts to do every single thing he can to please me’. He has fallen deeply in love with her and is possessive and jealous of her other friendships. Nevertheless she is soon dating him again, going to the races, having tea at the Beau Rivage, lunches with him and his friends, and receiving notes and dozens of red roses. However the pattern of their future relationship is beginning to emerge: violent quarrels, which are then patched up and they become ‘good friends’ again.

  On the return journey to Alexandria they take turns riding a donkey (left to right) Geoff Field, Atkins, Sheila, Putty.

  John Pritty and Sheila having tea at the Beau Rivage. This was his favourite photograph of Sheila.

  Finally she manages to send off a decent food parcel containing ‘tea, sultanas, marmalade, cream, tinned peaches and cigarettes, which I hope will reach you quickly. Sugar is no good I’m afraid – you can’t get it anywhere, not that there is any scarcity, but those people who control it here hoard it, so that the prices will go up and they make a profit! Dreadful, isn’t it?’

  Otherwise life is good. Racing is ‘rather fun’:

  6.9.42

  … you sit in an enormous and very comfortable grand stand, surrounded by hundreds of terribly smart people, mostly French Levantine or Syrian, all beautifully and most colourfully dressed – the course is oval and you can see all round. It is at the Sporting Club and in the middle is a golf course, football pitches, tennis courts, swimming pool, club house etc. The paddock is oval also, with shady trees and very cool and when they parade the horses around it’s just like an American film of Kentucky or somewhere similar. You’d love it. I did. Of course the races are all prearranged and they dope the horses, but it is fun. They are mostly Arab ponies, small and nearly all grays.

  Swimming is a great pastime and there are raucous beach parties with Tony, Putty, Mary, Rachel and Anne Halliday, one of her room-mates and also from Scotland. Sheila arranges one such party for her 22nd birthday, which she describes in a letter written the following day, as her ‘twin’ Robin is back on the front and unable to make their planned desert picnic:

  Office of C in C Med. 10/9

  My dear Ma – thank you so much for your cable for my birthday. As I think I told you, I had a wizard birthday party. I came off night watch at 0830 and Rachel and I went into town to buy the food, sandwiches, patties, buns, rolls, cakes, beer, coffee, ovaltine, etc and we had a marvellous feast. There were 10 of us. You should have seen Rachel and me with all the parcels. We had to have a taxi home, there were so many! We went down to the hut for lunch and bathed and played around most of the time. We took a lot of most funny snaps of which I’m having copies made and will send you. John couldn’t come because he was ill in bed with sandfly fever. That evening we went out with a friend of Bert’s who was down here on leave – it was fun to hear about old Bert again. On the following day I committed a breach of etiquette by visiting sick John in barracks, but everyone was terribly nice – all his friends are mad and rather amusing. The next day we quarrelled (!!!) but it was made up in due course, he having had, or still having jaundice. Lots of people have it out here.

  It’s miles cooler here now and terribly pleasant. In the evenings it sometimes gets quite cold. You will be interested to hear that I had a nice letter from Jaap last week … I am feeling very sad because Rachel left us last Saturday. John will be going any day now, so I shall be very bereft. One of our Wren officers is being married tomorrow in Ras-el-Nin Chapel and we are all going to the wedding. Great are the preparations …

  Oh, I sent off a tin of Turkish Delight to you last week. I thought it might be nice for Xmas. I have bought some silk for Rosemary and am wondering whether to send it home as it is or have it made up. If the latter, they won’t arrive for some time. Oh that reminds me, we have just been talking about scissors and I have bought you a small pair of nail scissors which I hope you will like. We are all dying to know what it is like at home. What is rationed – and so on – as although we see papers, they are all Gyppo ones and not quite the same. Things are coming to a pretty pass here – we can’t even get sugar at the NAAFI. So silly when there is really plenty. I haven’t seen or heard from old Mary Dugdale for days – weeks rather. Wonder wha
t has happened to her? I’m getting my birthday snaps this week and will send them on. Have you had any of the others I’ve sent. Heaps of love

  Sheila

  Sheila’s 22nd birthday at Sidi Bishr beach (left to right) Mary Dugdale, Putty, Sheila, Geoff Field, Rachel Charlesworth, Tony, Ann Halliday, Lucien. This beach is mentioned by Evelyn Waugh in Sword of Honour.

  At the end of September Sheila, Kay Way, Mary Dugdale – who has re-appeared from Ismailia – and Anne Halliday remove from the ‘peace and quiet of the convent’ to the Rue Rassafah, where they share a room and a history – they have all been at Methil at one time or another.

  John is returning to the desert and she will ‘miss him, as it is so nice to know that you never need be bored, always having someone to do things with’. His parting gift to her is an Irish terrier puppy:

  six weeks old and darling … not a bit the orthodox Irish terrier, but brown and white and so good I feel something awful will happen any moment! I took him on watch this afternoon and the first thing he did was to push his nose in an ink bottle full of red ink which was unfortunately on the deck and got us all red! Then he went to sleep. He belonged to a friend of John’s who is going to Malta … Everyone adores him, I’m afraid he’ll get terribly spoilt – but not if I can help it. He’s rather like this sketch. You would love him.