Open Writing

I was travelling on the train to Waterloo from my home in Salisbury. This was the first time that I would be living away from home and I was very excited about it. I was on my way to basic training in the WRNS. There would be someone to meet me and take me to Millhill training centre.

When I arrived at Waterloo there were three of us all nervously waiting to be told what to do. Eventually a naval rating took us to a waiting truck, which in time I learnt to call the liberty boat. The three of us were soon in a crowd of girls all embarking on a new life. We were soon settled into our beds and given our duties for the next morning.

I was lucky I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn like the girls whose job it was the clean the stairs, and there were a lot of stairs in Millhill. My job was to polish the quarterdeck, the holy of holies. No one could run on this deck and you always saluted when you passed by. The quarterdeck in our training base was a highly polished corridor.

After our chores were done we attended classes. We learnt the history of the naval sayings, why things were done differently to any other service. The naval salute is with the palm faced inwards; the army have the palm faced outwards. This was because the soldiers might hide a stone in their hand and throw it at an officer, but the naval ratings were trusted never to do that. You never see a naval man with just a moustache. This is because Prince Albert had moustaches, and the only men who might grow them as fine would be the Senior Service. If you wanted a moustache you had to grow it with a beard.

I enjoyed my training and, being close to London, we had some good nights out in The Stage Door Canteen and other places just for the services.

After our training period we got our first posting. Three of us had become friends and were delighted to find we were going the same place RNAS Yeovilton. We didn't really know where it was but it didn't matter. We were off to start new and different life. The train stopped in the middle of nowhere at Yeovil Junction. There waiting for us was the usual form of transport, a naval truck. No one helped with our luggage or assisted us to get up into the truck. We were in at the deep end.

Eventually we arrived at the naval air station. This was in the middle of nowhere and was very big. We were given our cabins. Mine was Cossack. The cabins were named after ships. There were about thirty of us, some in double bunks and some in single beds. You worked your way through top bunk, bottom bunk and then single bed.

This was the beginning of a whole new life for me and I loved it. Some of the girls found it restrictive but I was quite happy. The first thing we did was to press our uniforms and brush all the fluff off, having been shown how to do it by the old hands in the mess. Next we learnt to spit and polish our black shoes. I never realised what a bit of spit could do.

I was in the WRNS for nearly four years. When I left, it was to get married to a certain naval rating I had met at a camp dance ten months before, and we are still going strong.