Description
Object description
British schoolchild with Highworth County School, Ashford, GB, 9/1939-4/1940; secretary worked for J Grout & Son, Ashford Urban District Council and Ashford Locomotive Workshops in Ashford, GB, 4/1940-8/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Ashford, GB, 1923-1939: family; education in West Street and Beaver Road Primary Schools; death of mother, Easter 1935; home life after mother’s death; education at Highworth County School. Recollections of period as schoolchild and secretary in Ashford, GB, 1939-1945: secretarial training and first job with J Grout & Son, 4/1940-9/1940; sharing school with Mary Datchelor School from London, 1939-1940; choosing not to be evacuated with school; hearing of declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; issue of gas masks; blackout restrictions; effect of rationing on wedding, 20/3/1944.
REEL 2 Continues: growing vegetables on allotment; coping with clothing ration; employment with J Grout & Son, 4/1940-9/1940; father’s buying her a bicycle; reasons for applying for job with Ashford Urban District Council, 9/1940; sheltering in cellar during German Air Force raids; secretarial work with Ashford Urban Council, 9/1940-2/1941; bombing of Church Road, 1940; obtaining employment with Ashford Locomotive Works, 2/1941; visit by Squadron Leader Roderick Learoyd VC during National Savings and Salute the Soldier Week; duties and opinion of colleagues; German Air Force bombing of Ashford Locomotive Works, 24/3/1943; female employees; works canteen; memories of Ashford Locomotive Works’ employees; sight of V1 Flying Bombs.
REEL 3 Continues: fire-watching duties in town centre; work in forces canteen in Methodist Church in Bank Street; contact with United States Army Air Force personnel; story of meeting future husband, Kenneth Henderson; husband’s wartime service and post-war career; loss of Canadian relatives; attitude towards Germans; method of receiving war news; wartime entertainment; reaction to end of Second World War, 1945; sight of troops returning from Dunkirk Evacuation at Ashford, 6/1940; degree of effect of Second World War on family and local community.
REEL 4 Continues: billeting of evacuee John Hutton on family presence of other evacuees in Godinton Road, 9/1939-12/1939; military presence in town; work on identity cards with Ashford Urban District Council; sight of bombing of Church Road, 1940; German Air Force bombing of Ashford Locomotive Works, 24/3/1943; sight of bombed Beaver Road School, 24/3/1943; clearing up after bombing of Ashford Locomotive Works, 24/3/1943; degree of damage to family home in Godinton Road, 24/3/1943; grandfather's discovery of airman’s hand in leather glove in allotment after raid; unfounded fears of air raid whilst sheltering in Methodist church.
REEL 5 Continues: Reflections on life in Ashford, GB, 1945-2006: life for her children growing up in town; memories of market and shops; opinion of changes to Ashford with arrival of expansion from London; further details of her children’s upbringing in Ashford; question of transport and population problems, 2006; memories of Ashford Hospital; opinion of positive and negative aspects of expansion of Ashford.