Becoming a lorry driver and despatch rider for the WRENS

As soon as I was 18, I went off to Newcastle and joined the WRENS. I was sent up to Rosyth in Scotland and became a driver.

I’d only driven a car a little bit. I’d had six lessons in Newcastle, but I think I said I could drive. So I was sent out for a test on a three ton lorry with two men from Rosyth dockyard. I ground all my gears, and did everything you can imagine wrong, because I couldn’t really drive, and I’d certainly never driven a lorry. But they said “yes, that’s all right”, and so I was enrolled as a driver.

Then they said could I be a despatch rider, so I had to learn to ride a motorbike as well. I was given a huge 500cc Royal Enfield bike, which was so heavy I couldn’t pick it up. I was just shown the accelerator and the brake, and told to ride it round the dockyard. And that’s how I learned to ride. It was all very haphazard.

We used to take messages between Rosyth and a nearby air station, RNAS Donibristle. It was fun, except it always seemed to be winter, and I discovered that soft snow cuts like glass on your face when you’re riding a motorbike. And it was very icy, of course, which was dangerous on a bike. It slid from under me once, and it was very difficult to pick it up again. I used to go along sometimes with both feet on the ground. It was really quite frightening, but I can’t remember a lot about it. I just did it, I suppose.

After that I went further north to a huge air station at Evanton. I was second in command of the whole of the transport for the station. There was a retired Lieutenant Commander in charge, and then there was me. We had lots of drivers, either Naval personnel or civilians so it was quite a job really. You got plunged in at the deep end, but it was a wonderful place, absolutely wonderful.

I always say I’d never have survived if it hadn’t been to Wycombe Abbey. For people who hadn’t been to boarding school, and suffered the hardships of a girls’ public school, I don’t know how they survived at all.

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