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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'.
There were many reasons that depressing year of 1941 that made me decide to join the Navy. The news from all the battlefronts was bad. Hitler was intent in reducing Russia to rubble and it seemed, at the time, that he might accomplish his ruthless ambition.
Back then, we listened to war news over the BBC Radio or read about it in the newspapers, specifically the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Mail.
At 19, living at home in Withington, a south Manchester suburb, I was feeling bored with my job and looking for something more exciting to do, such as helping the war effort. The combined disasters of the Russian struggle and the American loss of life in the Pacific somehow stirred deep emotions in me. I was truly upset and felt that I had to do something. To be honest, if I remember correctly, I was also bemoaning my non-existent love life.
You must realise that I grew up in an all-female family. I had three sisters: even the cats were female! I attended an all girls' schools from the age of four to sixteen, and so had little opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex.
In 1941, I was working as a temporary shorthand typist, with the Civil Service, Ministry of Health. I rode into Manchester on the bus every day, and walked to Sunlight House, owned by the big soap company, Lever Bros, from the bus station in Piccadilly Square. My job consisted of taking notes in Pitman's shorthand from various technical engineers concerned with all phases of water, its preservation, its pollution from damaged sewers, and the like. No doubt important to the war effort, but not very exciting for me.
Before that position, I had worked at a Territorial Army office (British regional units, generally for home defence) in the city for six months after graduating from Miss Wilkinson's Secretarial College for Young Gentlewomen. This was a very select establishment situated in Albert Square near the majestic Manchester Cathedral.
Graduates of Miss Wilkinson's were guaranteed a job by the college. It was a year-long course and a good one. We wore a type of lab coat or overalls over our clothes so we wouldn't get them dirty and, also, to prevent anyone from trying to impress fellow students with their wardrobe. I also took Business French and German, and Business Maths.
The ability to speak French and German was due to the fact that I had recently returned in mid-1939 from a year's schooling in Lausanne, Switzerland, where I had studied these languages at the girls' high school, in the foreigners' class. World War II broke out that September, very soon after I was back home.
I had, therefore, begun the war years as a student and was now a government civilian employee, dissatisfied with the job, upset about the war news, and bored with my life style. So what did I do?
Being a well-brought up young lady, I informed my parents that I wanted to join the Wrens, the number one women's service. Did they react adversely? No, not at all. My father thought it was a great idea. I think my mother was pleased that I would get out of my depression and maybe, meet a nice man!
Although it sounds babyish nowadays, I always called my father 'Daddy' as did most English children of that generation. He was a wonderful man who had served in the trenches for four years during World War I. I'll always remember his grim tales of life on the Western Front, looking for lice in his uniform and burning them out with a lighted match.
During the first gas attack, his officer had yelled to all the men to quickly urinate on their handkerchiefs and use them as masks. They had no protection against this awful war tactic. Another story involved the cook of the battalion who had to cut the frozen meat allotted him, and cut off two fingers by mistake, as he was so cold himself!
An electrical engineer, my father rose quickly in his profession and was, in 1941, at the age 46, general sales manager and a director of Ferranti's a prosperous, electronics manufacturer. 'I'm so proud of you', he would say to me, after I became a Wren, as if I had been his son.
Some time before the Christmas season that year (1941) I went into Manchester to the WRNS (Women's Royal Naval Service), located in a corner of Albert Square, not far from the secretarial college I had attended. I was determined to offer my services and join the Navy, but I didn't go alone. Strange though it seems now, my mother accompanied me. It makes me realise what a sheltered life I had lived up till then.
The interviewer, middle-aged and dressed impeccably in a navy blue suit and white shirt, also didn't think it was out of the ordinary that I had brought along a parent. She was pleasant and appeared to be properly impressed with my qualifications.
I signed more papers, which stated that I voluntarily agreed to become a member of the Wrens for the duration of the present war. The recruiter then stood up and leaned over desk to shake hands with my mother and me. 'I'm afraid, Miss Bridgen,' she began, 'but the only positions we have open at the moment are for cooks. However, we know that a special type of job will soon be available that requires women of good intelligence who can keep secrets. We will certainly call on you then.'
Ushering us gently but firmly to the door, the Wren official said good-bye and that was that. On that premise, I had two weeks notice at the Ministry of Health, and proceeded to sit home and wait to be called up.
Fifty years later, it's hard to remember that British women truly showed their grit and determination during World War II. They worked hard at whatever they did. There was no shirking, every female pitched in. They drove trucks, flew planes, sailed dinghies, made munitions, brought in the harvests, in fact, they did everything that the men did or had done.
After a few years of war, the government decided to draft the female work force, because of the lack of men to keep the country going. If you were an unmarried female, aged 19-26, with no undue domestic responsibility such as an ailing dependent parent, you were liable for duty in the Army, the Land Army to bring in the harvests, or in the factories making munitions.
The Army, Air Force, and Navy, had their own female auxiliary service. The Army girls were known at ATS, or Auxiliary Territorial Service. The Air Force auxiliaries were known as WAAF's or Women's Auxiliary Air Force. The Wrens, my choice, stood for the Women's Royal Naval Service, and we had the best uniform of all three groups - in my opinion, of course. Navy suits with white shirts, black stockings and shoes.
If you were lucky enough to have some pre-war black silk stockings, well, you were an instant hit. The only problem was the silk stockings could be worn only off duty!
The Wrens had been founded in World War I in 1917, when 7,000 women volunteered to release men for sea service. The Service was prematurely dissolved in 1919 after the end of the struggle.
When World War II seemed immanent in early 1939, George VI, the present Queen's father, approved the re-formation of the WRNS. At first, the Admiralty thought they would need about 3,000 women but, by the end of the war, we were 74,000 strong. There were 46 rating categories, and 36-officer specialisations.
The WRNS remained a voluntary service until February 1949, when it became an integral and permanent part of the now highly technological modern Navy. In November 1993, the oldest of the women's services was merged into the Royal Navy.
New recruits are now commissioned directly in the Royal Navy as 'ratings', but retain the title, 'Wren'. Women serve on 27 surface ships as gunners, divers, engineering officers, supply officers and instructors, and are trained as Navy aircrew and pilots.
WOW! Quite a record, and a long way from that December day in the Manchester recruiting office, over fifty years ago, when I promised to serve God, King and Country, as I put my name on the dotted line.
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