The end of War in 1918 brought a flu epidemic estimated to kill 50-70 million people world-wide. In the UK this started in Glasgow and killed some 250,000 on these shores. Irish Sinn Fein nationalists fought a brutal civil war 1919-1922 against which the British responded with equal savagery. The peace treaty compromise split the island between North and South, although Britain did not officially recognise Eire until 1948. In India in 1919 British troops killed 379 and injured 1200 more at a religious festival in Amritsar prompting Mahatma Ghandi to lead a campaign of civil disobedience heading towards Indian independence in 1947. The Empire was dying to be replaced by the Commonwealth – by 1939 Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada had all gained full independence in a manner not too dissimilar to that asked for by the USA 150 years before.
Returning soldiers were disappointed to find that in the ‘Land Fit for Heroes’ promised by Lloyd George large numbers of people still went hungry and lived in poverty. The economy struggled with the new world being born. Churchill’s return to the Gold Standard 1924 increased prices of UK goods in markets already more difficult to penetrate. Employers responded by cutting wages, some of which were already appallingly low. Owners of mines and pits in particular pressed for longer hours for less pay and the working miners went on strike. For the nine days in 1926 three million workers took part in the General Strike but in the end it was poverty that drove the miners back to work. The Great Slump of 1930 brought further misery. In 1936 two hundred mainly unemployed shipbuilders marched from Jarrow to London protesting about poverty and unemployment in the North-East but it changed nothing.
Those with money reacted against the horrors of the War by partying their way through the 1920s – Jazz swept the land, skirts got shorter and women smoked in public, there were flapper girls and Debutantes Balls. In 1918 some classes of women over 30 were allowed for the first time to vote but full women’s suffrage did not happen until 1928. Lady Astor became the first woman to take her seat in Parliament. Following the success of women taking over many “male preserve” jobs during the war the Sex Disqualification Removal Act made it illegal to exclude women from most jobs. They could now become judges, magistrates and solicitors, and they could get a degree at Oxford University. In the 1920s the Liberal Party disappeared as a political force – the working classes were now represented by the Labour Party. Between 1922 and 1924 there were 4 Prime Ministers – Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsey McDonald but by 1937 the Prime Minister was Neville Chamberlain from Birmingham who in 1939 met Hitler and declared Peace in Our Time.
For the working classes an escape from the grime of everyday living was offered by cinema and the Hollywood boom creating the first “personality superstars”. Wireless radio became within the reach of most people bringing global events and organised entertainment direct into their living room, but telephones remained rare. The BBC gained its Royal Charter in 1927. Logie Baird pioneered the TV set in 1929 but it did not become commonplace until after 1945. Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer and Lyons Tea Rooms spread along an increasingly busy high street, and huge numbers of houses were built on cheap agricultural land lying on the edge of towns and cities across the land. Penguin books went on sale for 6d bringing literature to the masses. Cinemas could now be found in almost every town and city. 1931 saw the first widespread opening of the German innovation of Youth Hostels offering accommodation at 1/- per night. These were created “to help all, especially young people of limited means to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside, by providing simple accommodation for them in their travels and thus to promote their health, rest and education”.
1936 saw 3 kings when George V died in January, then Edward VIII abdicated in December and George VI took the throne. In 1938 the first mass exodus of Jewish children came to the UK from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Back in January 1921 Edith Edna Cork was born, the third child of Len & Nellie Cork. She writes:
“I was born to a normal working-class family in Saltley, Birmingham – my father was a man on a bench at Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Works, my grandfather, a master carpenter there. We lived in a 2 up 2 down house with no front garden or bathroom with an outside lavatory as did all our neighbours. He acquired a sock-knitting machine – I helped sew up the heels and the toes – and a stocking making machine – I don’t remember there was any sewing up to do with those. He died in 1932 aged 43 when I was 11.
My parents met at Heneage St Baptist Chapel. As far as I know my father had two brothers and two sisters, but I may be wrong (there were actually 4 sisters). My Mother was the 3rd of 4 daughters and a brother who won the Military Medal in the 14/18 war who married a girl from Skegness and they never saw him again. His wife made a visit to us after he died (1933), and I remember being brought down from bed to meet her.
My Mother was what I learned later to be “a bit of a hypochondriac”. All my young life I was told “You mustn’t upset your mother, or she’ll have one of her attacks” or “she’ll have one of her heads”. Of her three sisters, two with husbands and one widowed early, the eldest, Lizzie, the forceful one, used to come around every Friday night for a bit of a musical evening and to cheer up “poor old Nell”.
After the birth of Len my elder brother in 1913 my mother refused to go out of the house. One abortive attempt was made in the 1920s with all the family, so it was not tried again until my father’s funeral in 1932. She blamed this condition on my Len’s “difficult birth”. It all changed after my father died and she was out every night. I had another brother, Reg, born in 1918. From my earliest memory I did all the shopping, taking the grocery list to the local Co-op for delivery by bicycle. Going to the local greengrocers, bakers, butchers, all within 1/4 mile. We lived on the very cheapest food, bread, marg and jam for breakfast, ditto for tea. Dinner at midday a pound of fourpenny pieces and a pennorth of mixed vegetables and potatoes. No puds of course, except on Sundays when it would rice cooked in the old black hob by the fire. Bread and butter with jam, not fruit – or Sago or our own rhubarb and custard. We kept hens at the top of the garden. We had a little allsorts dog called Peter, although he was a she.
Amazingly we were 3 very bright children. Len went from Highfield Road School round the corner in Saltley to King Edwards High School in New Street in Birmingham. It was 1d tram fare each way. My brother Reg got a scholarship and went too. In the Summer my father died I passed 8th out of over 500 in the 11 plus, but by then it was 3d each way to Selly Oak so Mum sent me to the local Saltley Secondary School which was only a halfpenny each way.
There was a lot of pressure on Len to quit school and support the family by starting work – he had then got his Matric. He had a girlfriend from Church, Frances, a secretary who was 8 years older than him, the youngest of 3 sisters. She must have given him an ultimatum because instead he took up a scholarship at Trinity College Cambridge to do Mathematics. After having done German for several years he mugged up enough Latin in 6 months to get scholarships which enabled him to live in hall with essential dinners at 2/6d each, whilst living otherwise on a bar of chocolate, a bucket of coal a day and little else and sending 5/- a week home to Mother. He graduated with Mathematical Tripos and was a Senior Wrangler. He was offered a post as a tutor, but Frances did not want that so they offered him a place for a year to study whatever he wished, and he took Spanish. When he finally graduated Mother expected him to come home, get a really good job and bring lots of money home. Frances saw to it they were married within a year and he never came back.
Every Sunday I went to a little Congregational Sunday School held in the canteen at Metropolitan Cammell – until they required it for other purposes. Then the Herrick family of Washwood Heath and Saltley Congregational Church opened it up in a little shop. I got a prize every year for regular attendance – one year I got “The doings of Dorothes” which I enjoyed, but not when I got it the next year too. We had Sunday School Anniversaries on banked rows of benches in this little shop, and we were told bible stories and sang hymns – all those lovely tunes, and it was at the anniversaries we had a Choral March and an Anthem. Not one of these dedicated teachers ever went on to tell us what church membership entailed. Once, at the Canteen, grown-ups came after our finish and I stayed around to see what they did. I drank something when it was passed round and ate a little biscuit. Mrs Herrick shouted at me and called me a wicked girl. I didn’t know what she was talking about.
The Herrick family had a granddaughter Joan whose family lived at Mill Farm in Long Compton. With my father about to die (Aug 1932) it was arranged for me to go with her to the farm for a week. It started wonderfully. We went off in the farm lorry. Joan had two brothers and we had such fun. There was a little waterfall somewhere we could run in and out of. About the third day her father took us, all 4 sitting along the tailgate to deliver some sacks of flour to neighbouring farms. At one of them he did a three-point turn against the barn wall – and who should sit at the end that connected, without the gumption to swing her feet in the air cos she didn’t know what he was about to do? Muggins.
He whisked me off to Badger Ellen Hospital at Shipston where my leg was put in a splint, but then I was taken up to The Children’s Hospital in Birmingham where Mrs Salmon (the Farmer’s wife) had a brother who was an Orthopaedic Surgeon. He set it and plastered it, and I was taken home. That night I slept downstairs in the room with my parents, but next night I was back upstairs in my own bed. The following morning my brother came up and told me my father had died. I was taken off to the Queen’s Hospital, and thence to what would now be called Foster Parents in Pype Hayes North Birmingham whilst my mother was ‘being coped with’. My Grandfather lived with us then. Needless to say, no thought was given to me when the time came for my plaster to come off and I went on my own on the tram to Queens Hospital to have it removed.
However, this all meant that I didn’t start at my new School in Saltley until after half term. I had gone cross eyed when I was 3 or 4, so I arrived limping badly, cross eyed and alone. And then it was catch-up. I had never seen one on the scheduled books. I had to pitch in from Primary School reading, riting, rithmetic without an ounce of help from anyone. They had all done French phonetics so I never could understand grave and acute accents and circumflexes and just had to pick up the pronunciation. Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry – Magnetism and Electricity cost 5/-, History, Gymnastics – I had always had ear trouble so my balance was awful and couldn’t walk along a bar. I had to get the tram two mornings a week to Gem St Clinic for massage and electrical treatment, and then back to school. I started off on free school meals but was taken off after a few days – the norm was for a dozen or so paying pupils to have cooked meals, the rest of us took sandwiches. Later time was also lost to weekly visits to the dental hospital for fillings and extractions.
When the second term came we had to choose between German and Latin. I took German and was top! They gave me a prize at the end of the first year for excellent effort and attainment.
In my early days I had all my two girl-cousins cast off clothes and shoes though my mother was a very clever needlewoman and would have made me things if we could have afforded the material. She made clothes for neighbours’ children for a price. I attended the Band of Hope regularly, and actually signed the pledge not once but twice because I lost the first certificate. I got a scholarship of £7.10/- per year. We bought gymslip and blouses, no cardigan, blazer or raincoat. I had to wear a heather-mixture tweed coat the first winter which I had saved up my running errand money for and got cheaply from someone who worked in the Co-op in Town. A navy blue felt hat with a hatband. In Summer we wore cotton frocks with white collar and cuffs and wore Panama Hats – except me. I was the only girl in School to wear my Winter hat all Summer. I was marked out as a poor child, with Joan. She had been to a different primary school, and I have never had such a friend after such an inauspicious start. My brothers were brilliant at Maths. I was good at English and History and have always had a love of poetry. All through my childhood I used to walk to the local library a mile away with all of the family’s tickets, and by the time I was old enough to “get books for my grandfather” out of the Senior Library, I read all the escape stories and others of the First World War. Clothes-wise the hand-me-downs had now ceased and I wore Gym-slip and blouse 7 days a week including to Sunday School until Annie Herrick gave Mother a piece of golden brown furnishing velveteen and some cream tobralco and I had this wonderful new outfit. I was bridesmaid to my brother at his wedding in blue crepe-de-chine and a lacy blue Ascot hat and black school shoes.
After my father’s funeral, my mother got a boyfriend, and was out almost every night leaving me (age 11) in on my own – my brothers having other interests. Len ran a little musical group – he had had two years learning the piano, after which he could play anything, classical or Jazz. He preferred Jazz and he roped me into playing the ukulele. The Herricks had tried to teach me a bit of the piano with Joan, but I wasn’t any good and didn’t get beyond Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon which I could ripple off for years.
One day at school in late 1934 where I been known (unknowingly like my mother) to get the odd headache or two and “having to go and have a lie down in the staff room”, I was called into the Headmistress’s office and there were my mother and Auntie Lizzie. The Headmistress tore into me (again) as naughty and wicked girl after all that had been done for me. Apparently, I had been going home and pleading to leave School. The truth was that with Len still at Cambridge and Reg still doing his Matric my mother and Aunt had seen an advertisement for a “well-spoken girl” at the office of the local engineering firm – and that was it. I had an appointment, and by January 1935, when I was still just 14, I was employed in the Postal Department of Richard Lloyd & Co of Nechells at 7/6d per week, of which my Mother had 7/- and I had 6d, plus 3d per day for lunch with which I could get a roll, butter and banana, or sometimes a new 2d Mars bar and saved a penny, or wore out shoe leather by walking a mile to a little home-made pie shop for a 2d steak & kidney pie straight from the oven.
By Summer I had saved up £1 – enough to buy a second-hand bike (a Hercules, curved tube, sit-up- and-beg model) and that first weekend I cycled from Saltley to Warwick. I was worn out by the time I was halfway between Knowle and Warwick but pressed on, and after a rest, set off home. Fortunately, while walking up a hill pushing the bike got a lift from a lorry to Yardley, and then cycled the 4-5 mile back home. I never went to Sunday School again. My bike had opened a whole new world”.
Teenage Years, the CTC and Colin 1935 – 1940
Edith’s diary excerpts tell it from here. There is no diary from the remainder of 1935 but that was the year that the Youth Hostels Association (formed in the UK in 1932) permitted juniors to go to hostels on their own and a few weeks later she cycled to Cowleigh Gate Farm at Malvern to meet her two brothers just returned from cycling in North Wales. A ‘first ever’ week’s holiday cycled with Reg to Llangollen YH and then went on alone (6d per night for juniors). She remembers Cae Dafydd did a super packed lunch. The furthest point reached was Conway before turning back through Maeshafn with its 3 decker bunks where she spent a few nights after falling off into a pile of gravel hurting her face and needing her wheel straightened. Then Cynwyd where she was kept awake all night by fleas before re-joining Reg in Shrewsbury.
Her 1936 diary is very sparse but tells of the drudgery of work Monday to Saturday, learning shorthand, making her own meals, making her own clothes and going to bed early. It mentions the death of the King on 20th January. It tells of her mother’s “bilious upsets and heart attacks” and consistently of amounts “borrowed” by her mother. The diary tells of darning socks and making stockings for sale, of many trips to the library and to the cinema to see Zelma O’Neal in Joy Ride, Sonnie Hale and Winnifred Shotter in Marry the Girl, Dick Powell and Gloria Stuart in Gold Diggers, Sonnie Hale and Emlyn Williams in My Song for You, Grace Moore in On Wings of Song, Shirley Temple in Our Little Girl, Robert Donat and Jean Parker in Ghost Goes West, Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracey in Riff Raff, Jane Withers (much better than Shirley Temple) in Paddy O’Day, Jessie Matthews and Sonnie Hale in Evergreen, Monty Banks and Claude Dampier in So You Won’t Talk….
The diary tells of cycle rides to Hockley, to Warwick, to Astwell Castle and Banbury, to Rugeley on the Ladies Ride, of cycling in rain, snow, pea soup fog and sunshine, and of staying in Hostels. Of being asked to the Works Dance by Ted (told him I would consider it) and going to the pictures with him. Of being asked out by a Policeman (told him how old I was – wonder what will happen? Expect I’ve squashed it). Edith had a raise at work to 15/- per week, of joining the Accounts Department and doing her first Ledger. Visits to the Spiritualist – will she be happy? Taking up tandem riding with Len, of hospital visits and being discharged, of buying new lipstick and having her hair done, writing to and receiving letters from Alan West, who was also a keen cyclist and a CTC member, although his name does not appear in the minutes (see later) so presumably did not take part in the trials or endurance events.
There are no diary entries after the end of August 1936 and no diaries survive for 1937 or 1938, but in July 1937 Edith turned up at Griffins Hill in Selly Oak one Sunday morning and went out for the first time with the Southern Section of the Cyclists Touring Club (CTC) for a run to Summerfield. Tea was at Belbroughton. Of those days she remembers the smell and brilliance of acetylene lamps on Winter evenings, Club nights at Catney (the CTC meeting place by the canal at Catherine-de-Barnes), 10d teas at Foxlydiate and Wootton Wawen – normal price 1/- but the 2d saved would buy her a steak and kidney pie for lunch the following day. In December 1937 was the Christmas Party at Droitwich when her brakes clogged with snow. Edith could not afford to go out cycling with the Club both Saturday and Sunday, and anyway in common with most people she still worked Saturday mornings so as that meant Saturdays were only half-day runs Sundays were the favourite.
She first met Colin Thomas when she was just 16 on the run to the Mount in Henley-in Arden on 25th September 1937. The Minutes of the Southern Section maintained by Felix Hemming (now stored at Warwick University) contain many of the names that stayed with Edith for life – Felix (married Helen Lea), Roland Clulee (married Barbara Brayford), Joan Williams (married Arnold Mason), Dick Whitehead (who wrote to Edith throughout the War) and more. Her time was full of distance events, hill climbs, map-reading and hare-and-hounds events. Separate events were introduced for Ladies and for the men. In 1938 a Youth Hostel weekend was taken by Colin Thomas to North Newington near Banbury. Edith spent Whitsun Youth Hostelling to Park Hall at Mansfield Woodhouse. August brought a ride to Lambourn near Swindon, later a weekend at Wall under Heywood near Shrewsbury with the final weekend of the year at Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham. Saturday afternoon trips were made to the City Centre Library, Dudley Zoo and fireworks at Nechells Gasworks. All 10 girl members completed the 100-in-10 challenge in under 9 hours. Edith won the Ladies Hill-climb (again) while Colin was third in the Speed-Judging Competition over 10 miles finishing at Dorridge. She bought a half share in a 1923 vintage Joe Cooke tandem and with Colin ‘up front’ went to North Newington Youth Hostel on its first trip. Later they toured Sussex, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The tandem is now in the Cycle Museum at Llandrindod Wells.
For 1939 a new solo bike was purchased – a Standard £3.19.11d model with only one gear that the following year she took with Colin through the Lake District, over the Pennines and down the East Coast. Easter took her hostelling around the Dukeries and to Abergavenny, to the Claerwen Valley before the dam was built creating Claerwen Reservoir – the final addition to the Elan Valley Reservoir system that provided water satisfying the increasing demands of the Birmingham and Black Country conurbation. Then came a 19” Sun-Wasp Diamond frame with a B17 saddle, Marsh Bends – and a 3 speed Sturmey Archer. In 1939, Edith’s diary is again available and Roland Clulee took over as Secretary of the Southern Section. The diary is again full of long hours at work, of darning socks and making stockings for sale, and stitching her own clothing, but she seems more confident now, and indeed had been both “going out” with Colin Thomas (her Captain) since June of the previous year, and apparently sleeping with him from before Christmas 1938 while she was still only 17. This relationship involved much anguish and letter-writing creating all sorts of mood swings both from Colin and in a young girl already suffering from headaches, painful periods and some depression.
As War approached the relationship endured however as continual visits to the Spiritualist continued to say it would. Many CTC couples got engaged or married at this time of uncertainty – her brother Reg married Joan Summers on 30 September 1939 with Edith as Bridesmaid and her best friend Joan Tennant and John Tovey got engaged. Cinema visits continued and the cycling calendar was certainly full. The beginning of 1939 brought the CTC Concert at Catney that included Edith performing a Monologue. Then the Paper-chase was to Stourport with the Hares on a tandem using flour instead of paper. Colin came 2nd in the Hill Climb at Rowney Green. The Map-Reading course was around Kinver. In May Edith gained the first Ladies Prize (a new tyre) in the South Staffs Tourist Trial and most of the team had cycled 140 miles by the time they got home. Whitsun saw a run to the Yew Tree Inn at Freith near Henley-on-Thames in the Chilterns the reward for which was afterwards boating on the river. She had a pay-rise at work but hid it from her Mother. Edith and all the Lady entrants completed the newly named 100-in-9 within the allowed time.
But this innocence was not to last. Two days before the Declaration of War on 3 September 1939 Colin was called up. He boarded a train in Birmingham and was gone. Five other members of the Southern Section also enlisted immediately. Colin had joined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and was in France by 11th. Edith was devastated and much letter writing ensued between them, around two each way every week. She enrolled as a blood donor having to cycle to Selly Oak Hospital to donate. Friends all around her were getting engaged. At work she received a War Bonus of 2/- “but Ma wants it all” before they agree on 50/50. Her time was spent busily making black-out curtains, attending French classes, going to ballroom and folk dancing classes and visiting Colin’s parents John and Amy Thomas in Kings Heath. In December 1939 Edith became CTC Runs Secretary but the number of participants kept reducing as more and more of the members enlisted.
On 18th December finally a letter arrived from Colin suggesting they get engaged when he came home on leave. Delirium. Her 1940 diary missed out all of January including her 19th birthday but much letter writing continued between them and Edith made plans to move in with Mrs T (Mrs Thomas, Colin’s Mum) to await the return of Colin on leave. He arrived home at 2am Monday 26th February. Edith had half a day from work and together they bought a ring at Bonningtons. It was official. Alan West came around on 2 March to congratulate them. She rode the tandem with Colin to Holte End on Sunday and spent all her available time with him. Colin returned to the front at 7.30am Wednesday 6th March 1940. Edith’s diary entries ceased until September and even then were very sporadic.
Colin died 17th June 1940 when the dangerously overcrowded HMS Lancastria was torpedoed and sunk outside St Nazaire harbour. As Prime Minister Winston Churchill took the decision to suppress news of the disaster as it would in his view seriously undermine British morale at a crucial stage being only two weeks after the Dunkirk withdrawal as those remaining in France tried to get back to England. There are numerous letters in Edith’s effects to and from the Red Cross as she tried to ascertain his whereabouts once Colin’s letters stopped. Once his death appeared inevitable (it was never confirmed until after the war and for years the spiritualist kept telling her he was alive) Edith decided to join the WAAF and did so in September 1940 on the 3rd anniversary of their meeting on the Mount at Henley. Throughout her life Edith treated Colin’s mum Mrs T as a third grandparent to us and our family. Indeed when I was growing up I often thought that she was our grandmother as we always called her Grandma Thomas.
The War Years –
Edith’s medical for the WAAF took place in Harrogate on 29th October 1940. She was issued with her kit the following day. Much letter writing home continued. She was posted to Cranwell 15 November for Teleprinter Training and later to RAF Cheadle. She was made Flight Leader on 22 November. Weekends were spent hitch-hiking home to see friends. Finally posted it took 12 hours by lorry to arrive at RAF Chicksands with 5 of her colleagues on 20 December in freezing weather only for her vaccination to go septic leaving her in Sick Bay over New Year. Others in the class were posted elsewhere, both in England and abroad. They had now, unknowingly probably, joined the Y-Service where Edith would remain until she de-mobbed in January 1946.
RAF Chicksands was a Y-Station, a secret signals station, one of many across the Country and the World, whose job it was to intercept encoded enemy signals sent in the German version of Morse code, to accurately record them and to pass the information to X-Station (Bletchley Park) for decoding. When Corporal Cork arrived at Chicksands at Christmas 1940 they were still stringing radio antennas between the trees and out of windows while proper HF Antenna masts were built. It was a mixed service station with Naval ratings, 30 Airmen and Admiralty civilians (including Guy Burgess of “spying” fame). While Navy Wrens had been there from early that year, the WAAF arrived in July 1940 and the ATS arrived in early 1941 and between them there was much inter-service tension.
At the beginning billets were poor with some sleeping two to a bed. Washing and toilet facilities were shared between men and women but it was the women who were expected to provide cleaning services. Many new arrivals, like Edith, were only 17 -20 years old, away from home for the first time in their lives. Later in 1941 two self-contained and separate living camps were completed – one for the men south of the River Flit, and one for the women to the North. Medical facilities were at the nearby RAF Henlow and initially there was no catering from the NAAFI. Despite all this RAF Chicksands was probably considered a comfortable assignment with the company of other people and with it being a location on English soil. As late as 1944 some were still being transferred to India and other sites across Asia.
Edith, as with everyone there, would have had to sign the Official Secrets Act. The work was anonymous and monotonous. No discussion of the work was allowed and diaries were forbidden. Perhaps it was the complete lack of operational detail that allowed Edith’s diaries to last as long as they did. One exception to the secrecy was the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942 when the W/T operators were told what was happening in the expectation they would go the extra mile in producing high quality transcripts. On 6th June 1944 it would have been obvious to the Chicksands operators that the long-awaited invasion of France had started from the frantic surge in German radio traffic.
Edith’s diary shows her life to be “Work, Eat, Sleep, Polish (floors and brasses), Wash Hair” repeat. Eight-hour shifts were alternated between 1, 2 and 3 Squadrons, Midnight to 8am, 8am to 4pm, 4pm to midnight. Edith was on duty 4 till midnight from 23rd to 27th December that first year – but in hospital over New Year with flu – coming out to new billets in Clifton House. In 1941 she sent to brother Reg for her bike (the Hercules) from home – it arrived on 10th January. Very miserable at times, “Work, Eat, Sleep, Polish, Wash Hair” repeat thinking of Colin. In her spare time, she cycles the local countryside to Clophill and Shefford. Booked leave could be cancelled and then re-instated at a moments notice. Seven days leave was granted every 2-3 months. A dance took place at Campton on 31 January. Lots of floor polishing. “All our moans told to Wing Commander Swanborough”. The ATS arrived bringing inter-service rivalry. She went to the Cinema in Bedford and moved into the Priory itself on 1 March. Letters, letters and more letters were received and sent to and from home. Work, Eat, Sleep, Polish, Wash Hair repeat. Leave was spent hitching back home or sometimes by train from Bedford. There were dances at “BP” (Bletchley Park was only 12 miles away). Edith was on leave in Birmingham when Chicksands and Scarborough Y-Stations played their part in the tracking and sinking of the Bismarck on 24th May, a result that they certainly would not have been aware of at the time. Back on camp Edith went out with “G” (Gaskin?) every day for 10 days at the end of June. She fractured her leg cycling the countryside around Chicksands on 7th July 1941 and suffered with bronchial pneumonia in the Winter of 1941/42 both of which put her in RAF Henlow sick bay. No more diary entries are available from Edith until 1945.
Sinclair McKay in The Secret Listeners says that in 1942 morale at RAF Chicksands hit new lows. On 1st January the Germans had introduced new keys to their equipment, increasing the level of difficulty on personnel already under unremitting pressure doing a job that no-one would explain to them. Some 77 new Operators arrived already “bolshie through lack of leave”. In June 1942 a Psychologist Mr Chambers was appointed to “look into the cases of neuroses amongst the WAAFs”. He confirmed their uncomfortable accommodation in a half-finished camp, a long way from civilian amusements. The WAAFs were not listening to intelligible radio transmissions – they listened to, and made notes of, cypher signals in Morse. There was nothing to hold their interest. In addition, their time off was limited because (as women) they were also responsible for cooking and general cleaning of the Camp. The discontent culminated in “an act of violence against the Commanding Officer by a member of the WAAF” – possibly turning the fire hose on him. There was however sympathy for the plight of the WAAFs and it was the CO who was transferred.
In addition to acting as a listening post throughout the War, RAF Chicksands (Site A) doubled as a location for sending radio signals (Site B). In the depths of the conflict in 1940 the BBC had moved certain of its critical functions out of London to Bristol. From their studios in Whiteladies Road originated the clandestine radio broadcasts to Allied secret agents behind enemy lines with RAF Chicksands antennas providing vital links between England and the underground fighters in occupied Europe. In addition, from the Studio facilities relocated to Bedford came the propaganda broadcasts (“Ici Londres” – London Calling) and many of the overseas broadcast transmissions were routed through GPO telephone cable to the antennas at RAF Chicksands. Subsequently after the Normandy invasion in June 1944 RAF Chicksands (Site B) operated as a location for sending friendly radio signals across to the advancing troops in France. In keeping with the very tight security in the RAF and its Y-Stations, neither A nor B Site was aware of what the other was doing.
Although all hut-mates worked the same shifts, they slept at different times. Sing-alongs were common (McNamarra’s Band, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Bless ‘em all) and Air-Raid Sirens also disturbed their rest. It was not particularly comfortable either – Steel Nissan Huts are very hot when the weather is warm and freezing cold when the Winter comes. There was a camp cinema that was also used for live performances and impromptu concerts. Near the base was the White Hart in Campton, and three pubs in Shefford – the Black Swan, the White Swan and another White Hart. Dominoes and darts were favourite pastimes. Bedford was only 7 miles away by bike or by train. Sporting teams challenged each other from RAF Cardington, Dunstable and Henlow, or the Royal Navy at Letchworth, also challenges also came from teams organised by local businesses in Bedford and Luton. Fishing in the River Flit was popular and there is a story of Flight Officer Connie Woodbridge diving in fully clothed to rescue the Padre whose boat had capsized.
Then after Pearl Harbour in 1941 the Americans came to Bedfordshire. Many GIs from units of the USAAF became a common sight particularly around Bedford itself where entertainments, beer and girls were to be found. Various show-business personalities came to Bedford performing at the Corn Exchange or the old Granada Theatre. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Gracie Fields all came and maybe Edith went to see them. In 1944 Glenn Miller – a USAAF Major – brought his band to Bedford. This was at the time when it was realised that secret or subliminal messages could be hidden beneath innocent sounding music sent from RAF Chicksands Technical Site B. It is said that Glen Miller visited Chicksands but this seems more likely to have been in his military capacity as no evidence of his providing entertainment on site has ever surfaced. It was from RAF Bovingdon three miles north of Bedford that Glen Miller flew on 15th December 1944, probably crashing in the English Channel never to be seen again.
Edith’s WAAF Service Record shows that after her bronchial pneumonia in the Winter of 1942 she was posted to RAF Wincombe, near Shaftsbury in Dorset, perhaps for health reasons? She was billeted there with Mrs Antram at Woodsford in Victoria St. She stayed there until July 1943 and states that little cycling was done. From there she spent two years stationed at Capel-le-Ferne on the cliffs above Folkestone where she was billeted with Mr & Mrs Down in Dolphin Road. She was promoted to Sergeant. Far from being a quiet location some nights the Germans would send a shell across the Channel every three minutes. Then, between June and October 1944 over 9500 buzzbombs were fired overhead at London and southern England where the 16” naval gun 50 yards down the road would try to shoot them down with no thought for the effect the noise would have on the poor WAAFs close-by. Edith remained highly sensitive to loud sudden noises for the rest of her life. Despite her long-held belief that Colin would return at the end of the War, there were men in her life – it seems that during this time she received proposals of marriage from fellow Chicksands personal – Richard (?) and lastly – and most difficult to refuse – was from RAF Cpl Jack Pitty, Intercept Operator on German, French, Italian and Japanese traffic. She also thought that Jon (?) might ask her on his return from War. The ghost of Colin hovered too close however, and Edith turned all these aside (spelt out in a letter to Jack Pitty) convinced that she would never now marry, that her love for Colin was too great and could not be forgotten. In May she had a day’s Leave to attend VE Day in London where she saw Winston Churchill. Towards the end of 1945 she returned from Folkestone to Chicksands from where she was demobbed in November, although officially her years of Service ended in January 1946.
Both Edith and Jack Pitty appear on the Bletchley Park Roll of Honour, and Edith now has a Brick in the Memorial Wall.
The Post War Years, Alan West and Family
After Edith was demobbed in late 1945 she returned to the CTC Southern Section. She spent her WAAF gratuity of £52/12/8d on a Billy Gameson hand-built lightweight bike, with angles worked out between Arthur Hemming & Reg, on which she took a club weekend to North Leach YH finding bits of ‘rough stuff’ that no-one had done before. In the meantime in late 1945 Alan West had come back from the War in the Middle East, spending three months in hospital over the Christmas period. He had expected to be married within 3 months, but in the intervening period his fiancée had married elsewhere. With their shared love of cycling Edith and Alan met back at the CTC and presumably were able to share experiences and console each other in their dejection. And it seems a mutual understanding deepened. Edith’s 1946 diary has had the first 7 months torn out, and while there is little written in the remainder she saw Alan on the Stratford Road in August that year. In October she records seeing him at Mickleton, then at Far Forest (“Thank the Lord!”) and then at Catney where Alan invited her to Stratford the following weekend. On 20th October she cycled with him between Bearley, Wixford and Binton and afterwards was invited to see his brother Ray and his wife Joan. But Edith is unsure and bewildered about her feelings and whether she can trust them. In November she met Alan’s other brother Don and wife Mary and was going often to Wychbold to spend time with Alan’s parents. By December she felt “horribly unhappy and tight inside” and Alan presumably felt similarly because she writes “he doesn’t know whether he loves me”. Edith’s ill health continued and in mid-1947 an operation was necessary to correct a congenital retroversion of the uterus where the hospital threw in an appendectomy “for good measure”.
Edith and Alan married at St Alphedge Solihull in September 1947. Subsequently Alan added a derailleur to Edith’s SA 4-Speed providing 8 gears, a great novelty at the time. Together they went up and down the Cotswolds before touring the Alps in 1948 and 1949 including the Gemmi from Kandersteg to Leukerbad. Halcyon days indeed. It was during May 1949 that Edith became pregnant for the first time, giving birth to Richard in February 1950. Four children in seven years added first a side-car and then a rear kiddie-seat to their bikes, and with Alan working all hours, 6 days a week at the family brass business in Birmingham to ‘make-up’ for his time away in the forces, this meant that any available cycling time became more scarce while excess energy also decreased. Cycling, for so long a vital part of Edith’s life, gradually ceased apart from a final fling cycling around Mull toting the side car, a kiddie seat and two junior bikes in 1958. They both remained members of the CTC Southern Section for many years, keeping in touch with the lifelong friends made there.
But Came They All to Birmingham 