AN ACTIVE FEW WEEKS!

After a successful talk at Barry Library during NIACE week and a book signing, I've given two more talks about the Radar Filter Room, where I showed the film taken in November 1943 at Fighter Command HQ during an active 8 hour evening watch.

The first talk was to Penarth 41 Club, around 30 men - none of whom knew about this essential part of the Radar defence of Great Britain. It is essential the work of the WAAF becomes known and acknowledged as the lynchpin of the successful defence of Britain. 

This talk was followed with the same subject to a different audience - thirty eight-year-olds from All Saints Primary School in Barry. They were so enthusiaistic having visited the Imperial War Museum earlier in the week. Their classroom was decorated with memorabilia from WW2 - a copy of the train taking evacuees away from danger, a copy of an Anderson Air Raid shelter, ration books and wartime posters. They asked over thirty very intelligent questions. Congratulations to the Head Teacher and the inspiring staff who were encouraging these children to learn with pleasure and interest and instilling such confidence in them. I enjoyed every moment of the session with them.

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ANOTHER BUSY WEEK

Another interesting week – interviewed by Penarth Times reporter Chris Seal re the NIACE event on Saturday at Barry Library and he has done an interesting spread in this week’s edition. I will be showing the film illustrating the then top secret function of the RADAR Filter Room where I served for 5  years and talking about V1s and V2s. Then  I will be signing my Exclusive Advance Print of “One Woman’s War”. The event will be accompanied by WW2 memorabilia and the presence of WAAF Cadets – a fascinating event for young and old!  Come and support me.

 

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THE STORY OF A COLLABORATEUR

Last night, April 13th, my sixty-five year-long quest came to an end. In May, 1938, aged only seventeen, I went to Contrexeville in the Vosges to teach English to three young children. Their father was a right-wing member of the Chambre des Deputes, the French Parliament.

By August, it seemed war was imminent - it was the Munich Crisis - and he was called up. I was immediately sent home to avoid being caught in a war zone. Eventually at the end of World War 2, when I returned from service as a WAAF Officer, I thought about those children and wondered what had happened to them. For many years I searched without success to trace them, then through the internet I found their father had joined the Petain government and was labelled a collaborateur. I learned he had escaped to Germany in 1944 and then had managed to leave the country and found sanctuary first in the Argentine and finally in Uraguay where he died in 1968. In France, all his possessions were taken from him and his name blackened. But what happened to the children?

Last night Helene, the youngest of the three, telephoned me from Geneva and told me their amazing story. A French writer friend of mine, Genevieve Moulard, had managed to track her down through the Mayor of Contrexeville. Having been contacted by her, Helene immediately phoned me. She talked for an hour and a half in excellent English relating an amazing tale of escape, of anger, of bitterness and of danger. The life story of that family is food for a novel. Perhaps my next venture!!!

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MY INTERESTING YEAR!

Having produced a second book "One Woman's War" about the secret work of the Filter Room of Fighter Command and found a publishing company Candy Jar Books of Cardiff, things are happening rapidly. It is as if I had thrown a pebble into the pool of publicity. I have now contributed to Impossible Pictures, for a forthcoming series  "D Day to Berlin", to be aired on Channel 4 in the autumn and a further interview with Daybreak TV for a drama series plus an interesting contact with Boffinstv. Each day something new happens - makes life interesting in my 90th year!

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