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Patricia Bridgen Farley was a Wren (Womens Royal Naval Service) stationed at Portkil, Near Kilcreggan, Scotland during World War II, living in a house affectionately known to the group of Wrens that were based there as 'The Barn'. The Wrens came to be known as the 'Barnites'.
When I reminisce, I am amazed that we didn't complain more. We griped of course, but then all service folks do. We complained mostly about our pay. I was only two-thirds of a sailor's remittance, and they were not paid handsomely, by any means. Compared to those overpaid Yanks, it was dismal!
There wasn't much to spend our pennies on apart from the genteel tea-room, a pass to the weekly dance, or a ticket on the train or steamer. We were lucky that the movies and transportation to the base were free, courtesy of the hospital corpsman!
We couldn't complain too much about our health. Surprisingly, in spite of the sparse rations and the hard physical labour, we stayed pretty fit during those years. The degaussing operation didn't take any big toll on us, it was the day to day, around the house details, that were tough.
What I hated were the annual physical exams and the dreaded 'booster' shots. Once a year, a naval doctor came over on the launch from Helensburgh, and checked us out as we lined up for inspection. At the end of every Wren's probationary two weeks, if she signed on to be a regular, she was given a set of injections, inoculated against smallpox, typhoid, tetanus and diphtheria, then still a killer disease.
Evidently, that was not enough for the Navy. The booster shots were mandatory. I always felt afterwards that I was coming down with a gigantic case of the 'flu. I would ache in every bone and muscle. We were allowed to take the next day off, after such an injection, and most of us did, drinking hot tea and swallowing aspirins as much as we were allowed.
I've never been very good at medical treatments. As a young mother, I gave birth to five children with no problems but to hear people discuss illnesses or ways to cope with them always made me feel peculiar.
I remember I missed the necessary lecture on VD given by a young, bashful naval lieutenant at Clarendon House. I began to feel nauseous at the mention of blood and other body fluids and had to leave the room.
School friends remind me that I did the same thing at the leaving school talk, given by our dear female spinster doctor, supposedly about the terrible things that could happen to a young girl after she left confines of the prestigious Manchester High School for Girls.
I well remember one booster shot day, when I found to my great surprise that the doctor was actually my own doctor from home. He had joined the Navy and was attached to HMS Spartiate in Helensburgh. He took one look at me, recognised me at last, and immediately told the travelling Wren nurse to get a chair. 'I know this one from way back', he chuckled to her, 'She's likely to faint if she sees the needle, we'll sit her down so she won't do anything drastic'.
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