Love and War in the WRNS Read online

  I’m wondering if I should apply to be drafted as coder back to Newcastle. I think I’d like it better than this, or try for Glasgow. You see, I’m in such a muddle – no one knows what I’m meant to be doing and I can’t see there’s any chance of promotion (let alone a commission) for ages. Why lots of people who have been here in a year are still Wrens. I don’t want to be pessimistic, or anything in these early stages, but I must say I’m terribly disappointed with it all. Any girl can do any of these jobs I’m doing, coding too, and I didn’t like working on the Wren side at all. I much prefer messages about ships etc. I don’t like being one of the hundreds doing work that hundreds could do, and it’s horrid being ignored by people, whom, in ordinary life, one would fraternise with. No, I cannot mix with Mrs Kidd, or any of the officers. Quite taboo. And the men absolutely look through you. You might be dust. After a fortnight’s probation, you are invited to enroll, provided they like you and you them. Well, if my work isn’t settled, or I haven’t found my particular type of work, and I still dislike all these people so, I shall seriously consider not signing on. It’s an absolute waste of one’s abilities, really. I feel I could be more useful elsewhere – and anyway, it’s the dullest type of office work. Tho’ I find messages about ships, and sending out real coded messages to them rather fun. It’s all very secret tho’ and one must be careful not to say anything.

  I’m awfully sorry I find it all this way. I simply hate people who always grumble, but I think I really have cause to – for I’ve been brought up here under false pretences. Whether this coding will lead to anything remains to be seen. I worked from 9 until 7 today, I am terribly weary. I came home to go to bed, and am now told I’ve got tomorrow off. Thank heavens. Therefore I shall probably go to Church with Ines in the morning (there’s a military service at the abbey) and ring up these people to see if I can go and see them later on. I’ve not done anything about Rosemary’s Clive, but I had better do something quickly, before I develop an acute inferiority complex. I should probably be calling him ‘sir’! Mrs Crawley married a Crawley from Brancepeth. Surtees doesn’t come into it.

  I’m keeping a diary which ought to be rather fun, only I mustn’t let it fall into enemy hands! Oh dear me no – I must keep it as safely as the codes! (Can’t write any more tonight – eyes much too tired!)

  Ines and Hayne came in last night very hilarious and we had a tremendous laugh. They had been on the spree and had had a very gay time. It really cheered me up no end and now I’ve got the day off which is a good thing. And it’s a lovely day too. Mrs Crawley has just asked us all if we’d like to go to church and so we are most of us going. I’m told that that horrid girl who made all the row is most hated here, and has been shifted around a lot because she is a bad character. There’s a girl in this room called Kinloch who knows Durham very well and all the people we know. She is rather a queer girl - and I’m rather surprised.

  I’ve been sewing on my name tapes. We are allowed to send 8 articles to the laundry every Sunday. I haven’t sent anything off this week. We can do most of our personal washing here, but I don’t like to put it out in the drying room.

  I’m writing this in the ironing room for peace and quiet. There’s a terrific gale brewing, but it’s a lovely sunny day.

  You never told me if you knew anyone in the D.L.I [Durham Light Infantry] up here. I’m told it’s the 14th. Do find out because it would be terribly nice to know someone here. Please, also, rack your brains and try and think of anyone you know in Edinburgh or near here. We have to pay 2/5d to get there which seems a lot to me, but as soon as we get into uniform and present a pay book we get a reduction.

  What do you think about this whole thing? I think it seems most unsatisfactory. Do you think it would be a good idea to ask for a transfer to down to Newcastle? It would be nice to be near home and come home more often. It is 3 months before we get 7 days leave with free pass. I don’t know how weekends run, but people always seem to be getting home (those who live here) and I feel most envious. Or do you think I ought to stick it out here? I expect I shall make some friends, in time … Please don’t think I’m being frightfully down on the place. I really loathe grumblers, but what worries me is loathing it so and having to sign up for duration. I think I should tire if it stays on at this rate and I have no chance of getting out. You can buy yourself out of the W.A.A.F.s so I’m told, but not the Wrens! Senior Service and all that. That obnoxious girl has come in and asked me if I got into a row. I told her quietly and firmly that it was an unfortunate mistake. So hope she knows she’s squashed.

  We’ve just been to church and then walked to get coffee, but couldn’t. Rather a jolly girl came with us. I was most annoyed. Had to clean silver this morning. Oh, I rang up the people in Dunfermline and I’m going to see them this afternoon. She sounded rather Scotch. I hope she’s nice. I get very tired of Scotch voices around, and long for even a few Cockneys. There’s a YMCA concert tonight I may go to. Now do write soon and let me know all the news – try and find out some people around here – I’m sorry if this has been rather a horrid letter – I just feel I run out of steam sometimes and doubtless shall settle down again soon.

  It’s very pretty round here – must do some exploring.

  Lots of love to you both –

  Sheila

  She does make one friend, a girl from Doncaster, Ines Gillespie:

  … blonde and very kind, looks like Aunty Maud. I’m told she’s 40 tho’ looks 20 … and like me, doesn’t seem to cotton on with the other girls much … She has made lots of friends up here (mostly officers) and we are going to have some fun – I hope – but all the other girls are terribly jealous of her and therefore not awfully pleasant … I like Ines very much, but she’s what you might call ‘man mad’ which is rather sickening. However, she seems to meet with great success even among the Scotties[?].

  Sheila is desperate for company from a similar social background, and pesters her mother for contacts, especially among the Durham Light Infantry who are stationed in Dunfermline. But, for whatever reason, Grace fails to produce results until Sheila moves to Dundee at the end of October when she effects an introduction to a friend of the owner of respectable Durham coffee shop, Greenwells. This turns out to be Elizabeth Clayhill, who lives with her wealthy uncle at Invergowrie house ‘almost a castle, with turrets … and a bed Bonnie Prince Charlie slept in’. Elizabeth in turn introduces Sheila to some of the local people, and together they go out to supper and to the cinema.

  After Ines is posted to Methil (where Sheila goes herself in 1941), she makes friends with 18-year-old Maureen Pritty:

  a very attractive dark girl … She’s definitely a cut above most Wrens, and feels she ought to have a commission too, but is only 18 … Tall, like me, she knows a girl whose brother is on the same ship as Paul and she tells me she puts into Rosyth very frequently, which, if true should be grand.

  By strange coincidence Maureen is the sister of John Pritty, destined to be Sheila’s great love in Egypt.

  This dissatisfaction and uncertainty with life in the Wrens is set to continue throughout her career – always hankering after promotion and a desire to be anywhere but where she is – with the exception of Cairo as we shall see. For the first couple of weeks in Dunfermline she agonises over what to do, asking her mother over and over what she thinks: should she transfer to Newcastle or elsewhere in Scotland or chuck it all in? She is loath to return to Durham and for everyone say ‘I told you so’.

  Then ‘just as prospects were brightening’, and as she is beginning to resign herself to staying, she is sent to Dundee ‘rather to my grief’ to help them with secretarial work.

  ❖❖❖

  Life in the Wrens is a bit of a culture shock for pretty Sheila Mills. First of all the ‘diet is unbalanced … a lot of bread and potatoes … lunch, soup, stewed steak, beans and potatoes, rice, apples and prunes and weak coffee’ and she asks for apples to be sent from home, where there is a glut, although she seems to enjoy a
slap-up tea given half a chance (I counted no fewer than twenty-three mentions of ‘having tea’ in her first three months in Scotland). Scotland is ‘the land of cakes. The shops are full of the most marvellous buns, scones etc – much more than iced, or cream cakes. I always buy something for tea,’ although the ‘cake shops aren’t so good in Dundee as in Dunfermline, mediocre’ even, with the exception of ‘such nice cakes and scones’ and ‘marvellous hot pancakes with maple syrup’, good for ‘cold feet’. No wonder she put on weight!

  Like all young girls she wants to look good and the delay in getting kitted out in uniform means she can wear mufti:

  Today I’ve been wearing my red jumper, lipstick and nail varnish to match. Miss Overy [her boss] at once asked me when my uniform was coming. She doesn’t like to have her Wrens looking at all glamorous … When I am in uniform life will be hell, tho! No lipstick or nail polish, hair cut short; even tho’ it’s very tidy now, and skirt to my ankles, and you’re not even allowed to wear your hat at an angle. Oh, I’m thoroughly fed up with them all. Surely, if you’re willing to serve your country they should let you look at attractive as possible?

  She is highly amused by the rumour going round at Dundee that she is an ex-chorus girl and puts it down to her red jumper and lipstick.

  There is a constant to-ing and fro-ing between her and her mother requesting clothes be sent, in particular evening dresses for the dances, and an ongoing saga over her beaver lamb fur coat (which I still have):

  13.10

  As I shall be in uniform soon, I don’t suppose I shall want any more clothes. Though I’m getting rather tired of these, I’d better have my pink frock sometime tho’ because if you go away for the night, or anything, you can change if you like.

  17.10

  I wonder if my pink frock is ready yet. Please let me know how much it is, and also my watch. You see, if Roddy [friend from home] comes up here, we might have parties, and I should be able to change to go to them. Do you think I’d better have an evening dress sent up? If so, which? Do you think I could get into my black? I do love it so, and it is still very smart. My blue is very pretty, but rather summery. I might need my fur coat then – I really think it ought to be out of London, but can’t get R. to say anything about it.

  18.10

  Yes, I believe I’d better have an evening dress and coat, would you have my fur coat or evening coat if you were I? Some of the girls are going for a dance (dressed) tonight. I’d love to go dancing again.

  29.10

  About my evening frock – Joy and I have been discussing it and we came to the conclusion evening dresses don’t date very much. No, I wouldn’t like mauve feathers, they wouldn’t go with the silver very well. I would like some clip-on black velvet straps, not very wide, and some more white flowers, I think. Yes, I agree about lace frocks, but why bother about buying another? This will do if it’s let out a bit. Do you think the dressmaker can manage all right?

  When the evening dress finally arrives the ‘swine’ of a dressmaker has removed the gardenia flowers, much to Sheila’s annoyance: ‘Yes, I’m rather disappointed about the frock – the flowers on the skirt were so sweet – can you get them back for me, please? I’ve tried it on and it doesn’t look too bad, but not so nice as before’; she now knows what became of the missing lamé on another frock!

  In wartime, because of clothes rationing there was a lot of mending and making do, so this obsession with repairing and altering clothes and sending them around the country is quite understandable. The pay in the Wrens was 18s a fortnight, ‘which isn’t bad really’, rising to 23s or 24s as a Leading Wren, the rank below 3rd Officer. If you think that the cheapest pair of stockings – not silk – were 3/4d per pair, it must have been quite hard to make ends meet. The beaver lamb coat would have been an extremely expensive garment and it is little wonder that so much anxiety is attached to its whereabouts. Apart from anything else, Sheila must have worried about it going up in smoke in the London bombing:

  30.10

  About my fur coat – I’m not sure what to do. I wondered if you would have liked to borrow it, but now I hear I may not have my uniform for ages – they are very short here because the store has been bombed in Deptford. So I may need lots more clothes, as these are getting worn out, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear what is happening to me. I left quite a lot at St. Leonard’s [Dunfermline], including my costume skirt, so it’s lucky I’ve got these two navy ones. I exist on only two jumpers, a navy one and a pink one, which is miraculous for me. Stockings are indeed a problem, because all mine have gone at once, and I’ve only got two pairs left and can’t get any more. So I’m having some of them mended … I think I may need my pink frock, if it is finished. I can always pack things up in a box and send them to myself, if I get switched suddenly. I wonder if my nice brown American shoes would be useful. The only thing is I haven’t got anything else brown. I don’t know what to say. No, I think my new navy ones (which have been mended very well) will be enough.

  29.11

  I’ve asked Rosemary to have my fur coat sent here. It’s very cold and I need it to go out in, if and when I’m asked again! How shall I manage at Xmas I can’t imagine!

  2.12

  Rosemary had my fur coat sent up here last week, and it really is a great boon; it’s so useful to have to slip on when dashing out in the evenings, and really it’s got quite cold lately

  10.12

  I can’t believe it’s Xmas time – I’m still running about in my little check jacket and shirt, though it has been very nasty, and I’ve been glad of my fur coat. No sign of uniform yet, thank heavens! I shall look a frump.

  What with all this stodgy food, Sheila seems to be putting on weight (later letters reveal she was a buxom 11 stone!) and takes great offence to her uniform fitting sessions:

  Mayfield

  7/11

  We were having kitting, of course, and had to tear in and out of clothes at the rate of about 10 a minute. Really, everyone did look funny. Joy and I nearly passed out with laughter. Everything was so big. I was given a WX suit to begin with, which annoyed me intensely.

  The jacket’s not bad, but I could nearly get into the skirt twice. Then everyone said ‘that’s just the size for you’ and I nearly passed out. I was given 7 shoes, broad, when I have a narrow foot and a 15 shirt, but I jibbed at these, and also my hat – 7 1/4! I will not have these – but shall wait until the next issue. I did get some very thick Lisle stockings, 10 1/2, and some gloves. Which I’m hanging on to – but apart from the suit, nothing else – and, whilst all this chopping and changing was going on, my arm was hurting like hell [she had just had her inoculations]. It was all terribly funny – I haven’t laughed so much for years. Working at an orphanage1 and then dressed in navy from head to foot (I had a navy jumper on) and everything too big – I really looked like an orphan. The hats are terrible – so cheap looking …

  I took my Wrens costume to be altered to Hector Powe – and now learn is will cost over £1! Isn’t that dreadful? I’m sure I could have worn a smaller size and shall investigate. And, to crown all the A/C officer isn’t paying more than 10/- for any alternations, but Miss Overy has let mine go through, luckily.

  Stockings were in short supply during the war, and silks were particularly prized:

  28.10

  There’s a little puppy here belonging to a Dutch officer. He is very fond of tearing stockings and laddered 2 very fine pairs of Joy’s. She was very annoyed and told the officer to keep the dog under control. He said he’d give her 2 more pairs, which he did, lovely Aristoc ones – black – and wanted her to go out and celebrate, but she pretended not to hear. Very amusing.

  1.11

  I’m terribly worried about stockings because you can’t buy any here and mine are all dying fast.

  7.11

  About those stockings. I don’t think I’d be allowed to wear them in black. The girls here are wearing fine cut silk ones which look very nice – if they have them i
n my size. I do like the ribbed ones though.

  10.11

  I bought some silk stockings yesterday. Not black, so don’t think I shall need any more ordinary ones – just black as and when I can get hold of them. We have very nice fine cut SMK ones in shops here at 3/3d but only in 10’s, and as they don’t give like silk, I don’t think they’d be much good for me. I may try a pair to see.

  14.11

  I haven’t done anything about the stockings but have bought another pair of black silk. It’s quite easy to get anything you want here in 10’s. They have excellent stocks – so if you want any Mummy, let me know, but I don’t think you can get anything under 5/11 now. I shall get some ribbed Lisle – they’d be nice to wear with my suit.

  17.11

  I’ve been buying up black stockings. I’ve got six pairs now, hope they last me out!

  2.12

  I’m simply furious; one of those nice pairs of stockings Rosemary gave me has disappeared. I thought I’d tracked it down, in fact I’m sure I have, but there’s no evidence beyond the fact that I know that it’s mine. The person in question was very clever about it and beyond saying I know it’s mine and you’re telling a lie, I can’t very well get my stockings back. It’s funny isn’t it, that people like that always have eyes very close together? The infuriating part is that they were only 10 1/2 pair I had, all my others being 10’s as no one seems to stock the big ones up here. I did her [Rosemary] a very good turn, I consider; I got Draffens to reserve her four pairs of Aristoc 258 stockings until she sent them a cheque. They are very difficult to get just now. I just can’t get anything in 10 1/2 in black so expect I shall have to wear Lisle in the end. Artificial silk is all right, but unless they make them large enough I can’t wear them.