HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

Looking forward to a new set of adventures in 2012 - already I have heard from the Association of Flight Controllers, the current name for Officers doing the work of Filterers in WW2 that I have been made an Honorary Member. I am thrilled with this honour and look forward to meeting modern day practioners of the art of calculating and vectoring ai craft. I am also ecstatic to learn that the proposed museum at Bentley Priory, the headquarters of Fighteer Command and the air defence of Great Britain in WW2, is not only going to recreate the Filter Room as used in the 1940s but there is a proposal to create a memorial window to the WAAF who served in Radar, Ops Rooms and Filter Rooms. This means we have to raise up to £10,000 for its preparation but I know we will do it. Any ex-Filter Room personnel who read this blog are welcome to contact me at le.croissette@virgin.net if they are willing to support us.

It is time that the vital work behind the scenes done by members of the WAAF was recognised.

Eileen

SCHOOL REPORT

Recently I gave a talk to Class 3, about my experience as a WAAF Officer during the last war, at All Saints Primary School at Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. These  eight-year olds had previously visited The Imperial War Museum and their class room was decorated with WW2 memorabilia - a cut-out evacuation train with their own photos pasted in the windows, fighter and bomber aircraft, the emotive words THE BLITZ, HITLER, NAZIS together with Ration books and Identity Cards.

They listened avidly to my description of the job of the Filter Room, the lynchpin of the Radar system. When I showed them a film of the work done at Fighter Command Headquarters' Filter Room, they were engrossed.

At the end they asked over twenty questions. "Had I met Anne Frank?" "No," I said. "Did I ever see Winston Churchill." "Yes," was my answer. "Did we have to be good at Maths to work there?" And the questions continued...  I spent one of my most interesting and enjoyable two hours with them. The culmination was finding in my letter box two days ago an envelope containing twenty-nine hand-made cards from these children with drawings on the front and delightful messages inside. Here a few samples of these delightful children's efforts.

www.onewomanswar.co.uk