Norah, a Polish citizen, joined the FANYs in WWII

With the WVS I worked, driving into Bristol after the raids, driving a mobile canteen.

I stayed at the New Inn in Gloucester, which was a very, very old hotel with different levels of floor, and, you know, you tripped up over steps all the way along the corridors and things. Lovely place, but very expensive. So I found a place called The Dog Inn at a little village, not a village, just on a road, just one pub, and it was called The Dog Inn, at a place called Over. And it was run by a family. I had a room over the bar, so it was noisy at night; but they were very nice people.

That lasted for a few weeks. And then one evening they said, can you help sort clothes for refugees. So I went to this place to sort clothes … and I was working with a woman, good bit older than me, good bit older and, like, the age of my mother; and we got on like a house on fire, a very nice woman. I said, I want to get off at seven this evening if I can, because I’m going to see my favourite ballerina – in, wherever, Gloucester, I think. And she said, who’s that, who is your favourite ballerina? I said, Margot Fonteyn. She said, oh, how interesting, I’m her mother. And this was her mother. It’s strange how you meet people, and just out of the blue like that you suddenly discover a connection somewhere.

I took the mobile canteen into Bristol, did what we could. I remember the first time we went, after the raids, that the whole of the middle of Bristol – which I knew quite well – was just one complete devastation, whichever way you looked. The middle of Bristol has roads going off it all, you know, at different angles, and each road you just looked along and it was just rubble.

I found a brick wall where I could park the mobile canteen, and I parked it there. And we were dishing out tea to the people rescuing … and the rescued from under the rubble. And a policeman came along and said, you can’t park there, Miss – and I said…I said, look, there’s a war on, surely, you know, you don’t mind where I park. I’ve got tea for these people doing this job, that, you know, they’ve got to be fed, and tea and sandwiches and things. He said, no, I don’t mean that – the wall’s going to fall down at any minute. So I had to find somewhere else to park.

Excerpts from interview transcript Made by Martyn Cox –

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