91ÈȱŹ

WAR WORK FOR THE GPO

By Rosaline Ansell
(Rosaline has given me full permission to place her story on this page.)

I was fifteen when war was declared and although so long ago I can still hear the famous words of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, “No such undertaking has been received, therefore we are now at war with Germany”. I remember the depressed solemn tone of voice as the announcement was made and we as a family, like so many others, sat with our ears ‘glued to the wireless’.I don’t think the awful significance of it really sank in but I do remember the sense of upset and foreboding that penetrated the atmosphere as our parents talked.

I had just started work at the General Post Office in City Square, Leeds, with another girl called Mabel and had been accepted as a probationer in the Telegraph office. It was a large room several stories high which I got to by ‘lift’, (although there was a wide stone staircase as well.)

Just inside the door was a ‘clocking on’ machine where we pushed in our named card to record the time. We also ‘clocked off’ at the end of our shifts of eight till two or two till eight. As the war progressed we worked overtime and for the extra hours were given Post Office credits to be cashed after the war. Mine amounted to £20, which seemed like a fortune at the time.

We wore dark green overalls and our supervisor (I wish I could remember her name) wore a long black dress, glasses on a string round her neck and her hair in a ‘bun’ on top! Miss? Was very strict. I remember being reprimanded for wearing nail varnish. “I’m surprised at you,” she said, “don’t let me see that again.” We felt in awe of her and her severity but liked her because she cared and was a bit of a mother figure. When the air-raid siren sounded she shepherded us down the big staircase to a room in the basement.

The large room in which we worked was noisy with the sound of Teleprinters. As young girls just beginning, we would sit next to the teleprinter ‘operator’ and as messages arrived would go to a central point to collect a pile of them for our operator who typed them out on a teleprinter to be sent to various parts of the country. Beside the teleprinter there was another machine which tapped out a ‘pitter-patter’ sound to receive messages from every part of the country. It arrived as sticky-backed tape with a time, place of origin, name and address of recipient and important messages. Some were labeled ‘Priority’ or ‘VIP’. These were Telegrams. Our task was to cut off the tape and paste each message onto white papers. When addressed to individuals they were put into the familiar (at that time, dreaded) yellow envelopes to be taken out by ‘Messenger Boys’ or ‘Telegraph Boys’ on motorbikes. Naturally we had ‘crushes’ on them, with their smart uniforms and pillbox hats held on by an elastic strap under the chin.

It was frequently very sad work. Messages coming in were made into telegrams notifying about loved ones in the forces as ‘Missing presumed killed’, ‘Killed in action’ or ‘Taken prisoner’. It was awful thinking about those who would receive them.

After our three months ‘on trial’ period we were sent to ‘school’ to learn touch-typing and became Teleprinter Operators ourselves.

During an air-raid warning someone was sent to a basement room with florescent lighting (new then) to receive messages on the single teleprinter, for a two or three hour stretch. It was lonely and frightening and we dreaded our turn. I was always afraid of something going wrong with the machine. Somehow we got through and emotions of the time are just a distant memory.

Thinking back I wonder how, at fifteen, I managed to get up early and walk quite a distance to the main road in pitch darkness to catch a tram-car at about seven thirty, especially if the siren had gone.

Compared to many other cities most of us in Leeds were very fortunate, although we did experience our scary times.

Much of what I remember is common to most people — the mighty, dull droning throb of the German bombers, the searchlights scanning the skies, the glow of incendiary bombs, the sound of the ack-ack guns and, in the distance, the ominous thud which told us of the suffering of others in greater danger, and the brave air-raid wardens calling out instructions to us.

We were often awakened in the middle of the night by the air-raid warning siren and sleepily, yet soon awakened by fear, we would don our ‘Siren Suits’ made out of old coats and knitted balaclavas. For those who could afford it the Siren Suit became a fashion item, as did also gas mask boxes and wooden shoes. It wasn’t all ‘doom and gloom’. As girls of my age grew up we enjoyed going to the ‘pictures’ and an occasional dance (as parents allowed). Nylon stockings were very desirable and very scarce. We smoothed a tan coloured lotion of some kind on our legs and got a friend to draw a seam up the back with a dark crayon.

When there was an air-raid warning in the night, we’d put on our siren suits and go outside to our Anderson shelter which the Council had dug and installed in our back garden. It was about six feet deep with steps and a seat on each side, was made of corrugated steel with an arch over the top and was dark and cold. We had candles and torches but it was dreary. When it rained the shelter flooded and we had to sit with our feet up. We were told that the shelter was strong enough to withstand anything but a direct hit, so we felt safe, apart from a nagging fear, ‘What if a bomb fell straight down on top of us?’ Dad said, “Well don’t worry, if it does we won’t know anything about it!” This was not entirely reassuring!

A year or so after the war was over, council workers came to take down our Anderson shelter. I stood and watched as a strong man raised a heavy hammer and brought it down with two great wallops. The whole thing collapsed. I could see what Dad meant about a direct hit!

Some people had been enterprising and put soil over the top of their shelters planting flowers and placing stones to look like rockeries. I think some people were sorry to have it all demolished — but it was a sign that things were getting back to normal. Apart from my mother who I believe suffered indirectly from wartime shortages by going without more than we knew to feed us four children. She contracted TB and died soon after the war. Ours was one of the fortunate families who survived the war without traumatic incident. I never cease to be deeply thankful, and Remembrance Day will always remain very special to me.

PS When I was seventeen, like several others of us at the GPO I started going out with one of the Telegraph messenger boys. He was eighteen when the family wanted to meet him. My two sisters were dressed in their Sunday best with bows of ribbons in their hair. Dad really disapproved as he thought I was too young. The tea party went off peacefully enough, if somewhat strained. Soon afterwards my telegraph boy enlisted with the R.A.F. and became a navigator. Later he was shot down over Germany. If he had been killed it would have been a sad but romantic wartime story, but he survived and met and got engaged to someone else. I still have the beautiful barbola decorated mirror he gave me on my eighteenth birthday. On the back of it was written —“When you look in this mirror you will see the face which is the dearest one in all the world to me.”

Such is life! I don’t know why I’ve kept it all these years really — for a bit of self esteem probably! It’s all so long ago.

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