Friday 28th September 2012
Pam Goodger, who formerly lived at Corsley, prior to moving to her present home in The Close, Warminster, was the guest speaker at the September 2012 meeting of Boreham Women’s Institute. She held her audience captive by relating her experiences in the WAAF. Pam began by reminding everyone who could remember, how calm and peaceful life was before 1939. Pam was just 16 at the time but had a desire to ‘get on’ with her life, with an ambition to learn to drive.
Pam’s first experience of work was with the WVS. A six-week domestic science course gave her a basic training but in 1941 with the arrival of her 18th birthday Pam joined the WAAF. She was sent to Bridgenorth and was there kitted out with the standard issue of uniform – some 63 items – including a haversack to put it all in, not forgetting the large black knickers! Pam then recounted how the recruits were taken on to the parade ground for drill and were ‘barked at’ by a male NCO, who took delight in ordering the women about.
Eventually the sought-after driving training came along, and Pam was in Wales learning to drive a 3 ton, 6 wheeler, left-hand drive lorry, a hearse and a Hillman car. Unfortunately Pam failed her driving test.
She then spent some time in Gloucester, guarding a barrage balloon which managed to break free from its hawser and lumberd away “like an escaping elephant”.
The desired driving test reappeared and this time Pam passed. This was followed by a posting to an RAF station in East Anglia, where she was expected to drive a tractor, towing bombers from their hangars.
One car she had to drive broke down on a runway, having sheared the cottar pin. This meant Pam had to go before the C.O., but rather than a reprimand she was given a commision as a catering officer and sent to London for more courses. Further catering management skills were honed under the tutalage of one of the J. Lyons Company members, this time in Lancashire. These young women were considered sufficiently trained to take the responsibility of organising girls hardly younger than themselves.
Pam Goodger’s talk was well received by Boreham WI. The members found it interesting to remember and learn how rapidly one had to ‘grow up’ in wartime. The RAF was 22% women by 1945 – “how attitudes changed in those few war years.”
