Earlier life

I interviewed Sheila in April 2010 at her home outside Sheffield. She was a lovely character – kind, effusive and full of fun stories about her life and being a Wren. Sheila was a third generation 'Sheffielder' and was born in her Grandmother’s house in 1926. Having attended High Storrs Grammar School until she was 15, she left saying ‘I was lazy, I just didn’t want to stay on.’ Initially she got a job as a junior in a newspaper but the ‘man in charge of the advertising department was rather nasty’ so her father approached an old friend in the company he worked for (James Neill and Company Steelworks) and Sheila became a laboratory assistant, typing up notes for her boss Mr Biggin.

Other women worked at the steelworks and were known as ‘buffers’. ‘They were the girls who had to polish up various bits of steel of whatever was being made, on [a] polishing wheel.  And it was a very dirty job.  So, they used to wear big aprons, and their legs were bound from knee to ankle with padding and brown paper.  And they looked like that all day, to protect the legs because of the steel filings that were flying everywhere and, of course, special things for the eyes. But the comical thing of it, you always knew a “buffer girl”, when she came out at lunch time, because these girls were, a pretty rough lot, and they used to wear “turbans”, round their heads, and underneath, they had their curlers on, all day.  So that when they went out at night they were very glamorous – or thought they were! So they, could be very cutting in their comments, if they thought you were a bit above their station’.

Joining the WRNS

Sheila had been in the Junior Air Corps between the age of 13-17 and attended with her close friend Margaret. ‘And I became a member of the band. I’m very good, at playing a kettle drum! Margaret joined the Wrens and came to see me, in her uniform.  Now all the boys at Youth Club, by this time, one or two of my boyfriends, had joined up, either the Army or the Navy mainly. My brother was in the RAF. I loved the thought of aeroplanes! So, having seen Margaret looking very attractive in her uniform, [I thought] I’ll go for the best of both worlds, I’ll join the Fleet Air Arm, if I can get in. Now, I went to see Mr Robert [the manager of the steel company], personally, because I was in a reserved occupation, a war on, right?  And asked his permission to be released, you know. And he came back, yes. So, I applied to join the Wrens, in 1943.’ She had just turned 17 and a half and applied the week that applications for the WRNS closed for six months. She eventually was called for initial training in May 1944, six days before D Day.

Initial training

Was held at Balloch Castle, which was ‘actually one of these posh, big homes belonging to a Glasgow industrialist’. She spent a fortnight there, the typical time for initial training, scrubbing floors from six in the morning: ‘they deliberately have us these jobs, to test our mettle, I think’. 

‘When D Day occurred, because we had not signed the Official Secrets Act, several of the girls, who either had boyfriends or Fathers or brothers, or someone close to them and knew, instinctively, that they were on, on D Day, went home.  They used their option, to opt out. The rest of us all stayed. We were eventually sorted out, and sent for proper training, after we’d signed the Official Secrets Act. So, I was sent to train, as a Wren Ordinance. In other words, armourer. They would go through our, application forms as they came, and decide what might be suitable for us. The brainiest went on electricians’ course, Fleet Air Arm, because they were very good at Maths. I had failed at Maths, Maths and History because I didn’t, I can’t do either of them, and I’m much better now at Maths than I was! I can do all my accounts in my head.  Anyway, so there were four categories, that we were sent to, those of going to train as air mechanics, ordinance which I was in, electricians, air frames, and engines. And we were taken down, to this place, HMS Fledgling [in Staffordshire]’ for six months of training.

HMS Fledgling

'We had to do a six months’ course. So the first month, certainly in my case, was guns, of all descriptions. From rifles, right through to the hispano cannons in the wings, then of the Spitfire and, they were huge, big things and we were very, we had to train with them, we’d climb up on the wings of the Seafire, which we had models all round.  And we had to know how to take these guns apart, clean them, put them back together and so on. Now the Hispano cannon was particularly nasty because they explained to us, it was the very crude recoil spring, steel spring, you know.  And if you, if you were trying to press that into the gun and it flew out at you, it would cut you straight through your body. So, we had to be very careful with those.  

Later we had [the] 303 Browning machine gun. So, I learnt guns.  At the end of the guns, you took an exam. The next one was bombs and torpedoes which we learned how to load a torpedo with a gyroscope, and so on.  And also how to put detonator in the bomb and all the rest of it.  Now, one of the girls, Nadine, was standing by this model and, an old Swordfish I think it was, we were putting... model bomb, underneath, you know, concrete, and poor Nadine was standing very close to the plane and all at once the hook, that held this lump of concrete broke. And the thing landed on her foot. But she was very lucky, she needn’t lose her foot, but it was, you know, she had a really nasty, nasty thing.  And I remember observing at the time, clever clogs here you see, knowing the steel a bit said, ‘there’s too much iron in that’.  It wasn’t stainless, it wasn’t the proper stainless steel, you see. It was not, the proper hook to hold, a five-hundred-pound bomb. Finally [we were taught about], this was 1944, rockets which, [were] highly secret.  So, we were not allowed to write any notes at all about them.

We took exams in that.  And if we passed that, we got our badge!  So, I had a badge on my sleeve, which said “O” in the middle for Ordinance and then I was allowed to have, we all had our cap things, which said H M S Fledgling on it, you see’.  

3000 women were trained as Ordinance Wrens during the War. 

Sheila recalled getting trained alongside a little blond Wren called Mabel. Her Chief: ‘Chiefy Bones’ ‘was always getting at poor little Mabel, because she had a bit of a job understanding what he was teaching her and he called her the “Bloody Dumb Blonde”! (laughter).  She was lovely!  All the girls were, all the girls were lovely’. Banter from the men stationed at Fledgling was common. Sheila saw it all as coming with humour, there was a definite perception of the difference between friendly, if not sometimes cruel, humour, and men who were abusive or harmful. 

HMS Jackdaw

This was her first posting after training, in 1945, a RNAS base near Fife. She and a friend (Betty Thomas) were drafted there to replace two men that were sent to Europe. As such they were the only two WRNS Air Mechanics in a team of fifty in the armoury. 

‘We were, as Wrens we were lucky because, you know, some of the men could be very, tormented, you know?  And various tales I’ve heard in the Wren magazine from girls who were posted on, drafted on their own and weren’t very nicely treated by some of the blokes, you know. But, we were very lucky, we had a lot of fun with them.  

One of the things that they did like doing with me, which you’ll enjoy, we had this great big hut where we worked, where we took the guns, and the benches were quite high, they were all round the room, in the big Nissen hut. And, along each bench were several vices and they were quite high up. Now, working, we wore overalls. We wore bell bottoms, like the men… these overalls were men’s. So, when we climbed into them, and there was loads of what the Navy called “gash” – spare fabric…The back, there was an awful lot of spare, dangling off our bottoms (laughter). So one of their favourite torments, when we weren’t busy, was to grab the spare, the “gash”, at the back, put it in the vice on the bench, turn it up and leave you dangling like this! (laughter).

Another nice thing, funny thing that happened was Chiefy, Chief Petty Officer in charge, used to have to march us out to the perimeter of the airfield, overlooking the sea, it was on the east coast of Scotland below St Andrews, and there were also a lot of mines, which would drift up on the beach and we had to sort those out. We would march a squad of six, perhaps, or four girls out, to the perimeter, where, overlooking the sea, there were these stands, with two tiers of mini rocket, projectiles, at an angle, on racks, so that, when they were fired they would go zzz, you know, and could hit a submarine…and of course they were secret.  

We would go out, with Chiefy, and clean… When we’d finished, Chiefy would be marching us back again. But, it was very, very cold up there, we’re talking about early year of 1945, towards the end of the War, when there was this bitter north east wind coming off the sea and although we were warmly wrapped up we’d have the overalls on and that, it was still very chilly. So Chiefy would fish, out of his back pocket, a bottle of rum! (laughter). Now the men were always issued with “tots”, which was neat, Navy rum. It’s all stopped now. The girls were only ever given “grog”, which was rum mixed with water. So Chiefy would have a flask, of coffee, a flask of rum, or grog, he’d probably need his own really neat stuff, and he would “lace” a coffee with the rum, and give it to us.  So, we didn’t just march back, we sort of (laughter) swayed! So it was, that was great! You know. 

We had lots of fun in lots of ways. You know, I mean, it was hard work and it was tiring and the end of the day, your bell bottoms would be flapping around your legs, if you missed the last bus, lorry, up the hill, because it was, the armoury was right down the bottom of a hill, and up to the airfield.  If you missed that, you’d got to walk up, with your bell bottoms flapping round your ankles and it were very chilly, you know.

I loved it, although it was hard work. We were up, we would have the tannoy at, 6 o’clock in the morning, 6.00 a.m, and the voice was usually, probably a Petty Officer, “Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, the morning’s bright, the morning’s fine!”  We would then leap, or stagger, out of our bunks, get dressed, with shoes being polished on the back of our bell bottoms, and then out, onto the parade ground, where we all lined up, rigidly at attention, for inspection!

So, we’d then go off to our work. Very often I would be in a huge aircraft hangar. The aircraft would be waiting, in line there, and so I would have to clamber up into the cockpit, sort out the jettison buttons, which were what they jettisoned the bomb with. You know, press a button and it would go, or a torpedo and it would go, but mainly I would clean the guns in the wings and at that time, in the Barracuda, they had Vickers gas operated machine guns…in the wings. So, I would just get the guns out, and strip them down and we had long cleaning, metal cleaning rods. We would have a little piece of flannel, called 4 by 2, and I’d put flannel in and you’d push that down the barrel, you know, with a bit of oil on the end.  And then, of course, you had to hold it up…and it got to be spotlessly clean, you know, just like the Army. There mustn’t be any risk of damage or blowback, or anything of that nature.  So, I can’t remember, I think there were four, two in each wing and then when, if you did a Spitfire, a Seafire, it would have these big cannons. So that was my main job and, checking the buttons in the, in the cockpit, making sure everything worked all right… 

And, also, in the room where they were stored, we had cameras. And somebody else used to load the cameras on to their little… platform things, that held a little, equipment that held them, that would swivel.  And then I’d go up, climb up on plane wing and then these things would be installed, on the plane wings, to take photographs of, how they were flying, where they were going to and how they’d managed. I got into serious trouble one day, one weekend. I remember Saturday afternoon I was sent for by a chief rank in charge of us, because one of these cameras hadn’t worked. And I was terribly upset. Of course the pilot was furious, because there were no pictures of what he had been doing, of his training. But, I still, to this day, I am sure it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t left, it was the cradle, I hadn’t put it on the cradle, I had merely put the cradle and the camera on, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell her, you know. So, I was on a little charge, for that. It was kind of, inevitable really’.  

VE Day

Whilst posted at HMS Jackdaw Shiela slept in Nissen huts. ‘Well, in our case, there were great long Nissen huts and you went to an outer door and to a little annexe. And each side of this little annexe …two Wren Petty Officers slept, one on each side.  Then there was another inner door and when you went through that… on either side were twenty, two-tiered bunks.  So that was forty girls. Some on the bottom and some on the top. Now, on VE night… everybody went mad because all the matelots were issued with neat rum, of course.  The girls got “grog”.  We knew what might happen (laughs), later on that night.  We were brought in by the Petty Officers and locked into our cabins for safety! (laughter).

Now, all along the side to these Nissen huts were open, windows that opened outwards, you know, sash, I think they opened out, yes.  You know, metal windows, typical nissen huts.  And they were only about, perhaps you, sitting down, at your knee, you know, at the bottom. So they were easily climbable. And one of the funniest sights I’ve ever seen was, one of my mates, on the top bunk, diagonally from me, who was by a window. And every time a head appeared, through the window, with the effort to try and climb in, a Navy head, she would bonk it with a slipper! (laughs). And that was one of the funniest things I ever saw. Needless to say, we never had our virtue attacked!  Because we were, well defended!  

So, about the VE night most of them were drunk, they threw everything on the ships, on to a bonfire in the middle of the parade ground, including the ship’s bell. I don’t know whether they, whether the MPs caught them, I don’t know, we didn’t know.  So that was VE night and great celebrations’.  

Funny stories

‘Well, on one of my off duty periods, I used to catch this little train. Norton Bridge, which was a little railway that ran near our camp.  And I went into Stafford on that little train.  There was only about two or three stops.  And I got out at the station and it had one of these, little inclines up, from the station… then I heard it and, over to the left, it was full of Yanks.  And they were all leaning out of the windows wolf whistling at me!  Which was very flattering, but I was bright red from top to bottom by the time I got to the top there. But that’s how they were.  

And we can have another little joke, if we can? Talking about the Yanks. They never went anywhere without their rolled-up tarpaulin things, under their arms.  We knew what they were up to, with those as well.  But they never caught any of us!  They used to lie on them, for what, you can guess! When they grabbed, got hold of a girl! We did actually, we used to exchange camp dances, and they did come to one of our dances, with all Glen Miller, you know.  Marvellous. But, when there was a dance at their camp, we all did, rushed to put our name down, but I never got on one.  So that was my, that was my only communication with the Yanks, but they were famous for that!’

She also told me a story of a VE day celebration parade: ‘and then on comes the Royal Marines, the one, the most famous one at that time, the Royal Marines Band, marching on, you know, very smart. And in the middle of them was a little plump man, with this great big drum. You know, he was the big drum banger. So they were all marching on from the outskirt, he was in the middle. All at once the straps on his big drum came off and I can still see him now, and I wish I had a cartoon of it, the poor little bod, his drum went round and round and round, right into the far corner of the parade ground, pursued by the wind and he was chasing after it, to try and get it. And we were all stood there, trying not to laugh, probably the Admiral was as well! I’ve never seen anything so funny in my life!  He finally got it, went back, somehow or other they helped him fasten the, they were leather straps, they were huge, white leather straps. So, they finally managed to fasten it and then off, off went the band and we followed and did our march past and you know, bowed and all the rest of it! (laughs) And I’ve never ever forgotten that, I bet that poor little bod was on charge the minute he got off that parade ground.  Whether it was his fault, you know, and he hadn’t fastened the buckles or something properly, I don’ know, but it was a memory to treasure that was! (laughter)’. 

The end of the War

By December 1945, Sheila was 18 and had found it difficult to hear. She was diagnosed with middle ear deafness and was sent for treatment at Haslar Hospital in Gosport. The Navy had begun to demob everyone at that point ‘and they demobbed everybody up to group 61, up to group 60, right? And I, was in group 61. So all of us who were the later joiners, you see, in 1944, we had to choose between three different categories, because we were stepping down as Air Mechanics. We were given a choice of cook, steward or writer – in other words, cook, waitress or typist.  Well, you can imagine which one I went for. I was sent on an educational vocational training course’ for a month in spring 1946. 

'Then I was sent to Birfield, near Reading…and then from there I was drafted to Lee-on-Solent because, I asked particularly if I could go and work at Admiral offices, at Head Office to keep [me] in the Fleet Air Arm and the Naval Air Service. So, they kept me on, at Lee-on-Solent, until about October 1946, although I could have gone…[but] I had to wait, to see this top Consultant. He confirmed the Medical Officer’s opinion that it was auto sclerosis, middle ear, deafness in October 1946 and then, finally, I was demobbed and came home early December 1946.

And incidentally, my private story was that I was home in 1947, of course, and I was very depressed, by having this happen to me because. Mother was deaf, in middle age you see. It was in the family. So, we will, we will gloss over ’47, but I went back to work and then Dad paid for me, £15, which was a lot of money in 1948 for my Father to find, sent me, to a Harley Street man recommended by my Doctor. And he was, believe it or not, the Senior Consultant at King’s College, Dulwich Mr Cawthorn. A lovely man. Yes, he said, it is middle ear deafness, middle ear deafness, known as auto sclerosis.  And then he explained to me what auto sclerosis was. Which is very interesting now. It was arthritis, of the middle ear. Now, what he did this man, what he did was this operation, on this ear.

I went into King’s College Hospital round about March/April ’48 and Mr Cawthorn had to operate by going down with a microscope…straight down, to where this little hammer was and he now, afterwards he did what they called a stapedectomy, where he tapped it and freed it, but he couldn’t do this. So, what he did, he cut a little window beyond it, where the sound travels through to the filaments and because it was like a little window, it was called a fenestration operation, from fenetre for window, right? Now it worked for a great many people quite well and, there were about ten of us, having this op, privately, as it were, we thought at King’s College. And we had to stay in hospital for a fortnight. So, we stayed there.  Now, they were disappointed in my case, I was only 22 and they expected 100% success and they didn’t get it, only about 50%.  So later on, of course, I had to go to a hearing aid but, what was beautiful about it was, that Mr Cawthorn told me that privately it would have cost me £1,500. The NHS had just started, I got it free!’

Following her demob and operation Sheila went back to steelworks, ‘but I didn’t stay too long because we got a new boss and none of us really liked him, poor so and so. So, this friend of mine [I] had been at Hastings with [Sheila], happened to have another friend working in the Education Office who was married and was about to leave, to have a family. So, Sheila told me about this, so I wrote to the Chief Officer and asked if there was a vacancy at the Education Office and I finished up there, from November ’49 and finally left in April, 1956.  Because by that time I had married his nibs, who’d worked in the Education Office all his life, apart from his Air Force training, 46 years he did. Finished up becoming an Assistant Education Officer, one of eight of them for the Chief Education Officer. And he was in charge of all the school premises and land throughout Sheffield’.

I asked Sheila what it was like settling back into life after the WRNS. ‘I never ever regretted going in the Wrens. I loved it, you know.  It was hard work, but I loved it.  I hated – it was a year before I settled down again, when I got home… But then, funnily enough, as I got on the top of a double decker bus, to go home, when I came home on that last leave, funnily enough, who should come on top of the bus but my brother! In his RAF uniform! So we both arrived at home together. How my poor Mum and Dad went on, without us both, you know, you, when you look back you think oh, how could I have done it, but of course, you’re young and you want to do and the world is your oyster, you know.  And I think they were very proud of us both really’.