Shrubb, May (Oral history)

British private served with Auxiliary Territorial Service attached to Special Operations Executive, 1941-1945

REEL 1 Background in Rotherhithe, 1919-1941: family; education; employment as seamstress pre 1939. Enlistment and training with Auxiliary Territorial Service in GB, 1941: reasons for joining army; impressions of Pontefract; attitude towards basic training. Recollections of period as private with Auxiliary Territorial Service attached to Special Operations Executive at The Thatched Barn, 1941-1945: initial posting to The Priory then the Thatched Barn; allocation to Props under Sergeant Constance Pugh; work on 'tyre-busters'; organisation of work and types of work engaged in; work on 'jelly feet'; work on bags for Sten guns; disguising Sten guns as fish; concealing codes in pens; flooding of Germany with forged marks. REEL 2 Continues: description of 'jelly feet'; manufacturing of Organisation Todt armbands; degree of knowledge of workings of other departments; secrecy surrounding The Thatched Barn; how her old gramophone used by an agent; story of meeting her husband and his subsequent death; story of possessing photograph and stamp depicting both her husbands in 1945; memories of Colonel Wills; cover name for Special Operations Executive; staff relationships; living conditions; security measures; pay; farewell winding up party, 1945. REEL 3 Continues: Demobilisation arrangements for married women and widows. Reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939. Recollections of period as civilian in Rotherhithe during London Blitz, 1940-1941: experiences of bombing in Trocy Cinema, Stepney,7/9/1940; mother's evacuation to Taplow; bombing of Farringdon Street; hitching lifts during Blitz; public morale; losses of relatives and friends. Reflections on Second World War: attitude towards outcome of Second World War; attitude towards Germans; VE Day celebrations; black marketeering in Second World War; pilfering from bombed buildings; attitude to travelling in blackout.