What a Bad Back

When I was a girl, I wanted to go into the WRENS. My fiancé told my Mother not to let me go there because he had seen what went on with the Navy men! So I went into the fire service. The job I was given was Secretary to the Deputy Chief Fire Officer. He was getting on and his name was Mr Metcalf.

When I went to see him he said, ‘I’ve never had a secretary before love. I don’t know what to do with you!’

So I said to him ‘I can type letters.’ And he said, ‘I don’t send letters.’
So I said ‘I can do filing.’ And he said, ‘I don’t have any filing.’

He really didn’t know what to do with me at all. After a little while he said, ‘Do you do knitting?’
I said, ‘yes’ so he said, ‘Well bring your knitting in then love.’

My mother also thought she would join the fire service. They put her in the stores which were very hectic. If I had her job and she had mine we both would have been OK!

I got married in 1941 and soon found that I was expecting. When I told Mr Metcalf he said, ‘Well love, we had better not tell the firemen because they will think it’s hilarious. I know, we will tell them you have a bad back.’

When the time came for me to give up work he told them my back had got worse. Imagine how surprised they were when I took my new baby in to show them!

They all said it must have been a VERY bad back!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jacci Phillips of the CSV Action Desk at BBC Hereford and Worcester on Behalf of Lillian Batty and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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