Women at war: Hilda's story

As fears of an impending war grew closer, Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare invited Lady Reading to develop an organisation for the recruitment and training of women, and the WVS was born. It became the WRVS when the Queen conferred Royal on the title in 1966.

Soon after the national headquarters were established in London in 1938, a meeting was held in York to inaugurate a local branch. It was attended by both the Lord Mayor of York and Lady Reading, by now chairman of the WVS.

York WVS began in two rooms in Parliament Street, before settling at the library for the remainder of the war.

The first county borough organiser was Mrs Stobart, succeeded by Mrs Thompson, who steered the organisation through the war years.

Among the local volunteer force was the late Hilda Appleby. Born in 1902, she lived at Fulford and wrote a fascinating account of her time with the WVS. It was brought in by Hilda's niece Jean Mordue, and she kindly gave permission for extracts to be reproduced in the Evening Press.

The story begins with Hilda's somewhat casual recruitment. "At the beginning of the war, I was out walking my dog one day and I stopped for a chat with a passing lady.

"The conversation was mostly about our dogs then, out of the blue, she asked me if I would like to join the WVS.

"I asked her how I would be involved and what I would be doing. She told me they were desperate for helpers on the York Station canteen and that if I joined, my immediate duty would be to help at the canteen."

The canteen was on platform eight where it provided a vital service throughout the war.

"Originally I was given the shift which started at midnight through until 8am next morning. I did this shift continuously until the canteen closed.

"Our night shift was the longest and often the busiest of them all - lots of troop movements took place at night.

"A taxi picked a friend and I up at a quarter to midnight and the staff we relieved were taken home in the same taxi. There were usually five on our shift and we served tea and coffee, pork pies, sausage rolls and various sandwiches - egg, salad when in season, and the most popular of all - Spam and beans. Everything was sold to cover the costs, as all labour was voluntary.

"I can still remember standing at the table chopping up Spam and adding cans of beans at 3-4am in the morning. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke you could have cut it with a knife. We were also able to warm soup if requested and had the time.

"To this day I can't eat Spam."

Forces personnel from all the services came through the canteen. Men and women of all nationalities were served there. When they were warned that a train full of perhaps 500 troops was on its way, the work began in earnest.

"We had to prepare stacks of food, urns of tea and coffee all ready for serving quickly.

"We had to resort many times to jam jars as we ran out of cups. Our cup losses were enormous - five to six hundred a month. When we had a lull, we used to take a walk up and down the station, collecting cups from the floor, luggage barrows, window sills and every conceivable place.

"I have a lovely memory of collecting cups early one morning when I came across a group of soldiers who were on their way to Malaya. One had a saxaphone and they were singing and asked me to join them.

"I sat down with them on a barrow and I was asked for a special request. I chose 'Fascinating You' and it always remained a very nostalgic memory."

It was not only the troop trains which arrived during the night. German and Italian prisoners of war, fastened to their military guards, were served with WVS tea on their carriages. The Red Cross trains stopped too.

"We had to take trays with huge jugs of tea and coffee on to these trains, as they were often full of badly-injured stretcher cases. This was often a very sad job for us, but we had to put on a smile, whatever we were feeling."

The railway station was badly bombed during the worst air raid on York in April 1942. Hilda had trained with the ARP, but was not on duty that night.

"The WVS's job was to set up an incident enquiry point in a street in the district where the bombs had fallen, using borrowed tables and chairs. The idea was to take the names of missing people and, as they turned up, to make a register of them.

"I wasn't on the rota when York had its worst air raid. There was a considerable loss of life, but the WVS who were on duty did a splendid job of work, and were thanked publicly by the mayor."

Another of her jobs was to escort "displaced persons", refugees made homeless by the war. "These people were from northern Europe - mostly Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and all the Baltic States.

"I would travel down to Cambridge by train, collect 50 or 60 men and women and bring them back to York to be met by a Ministry of Labour official.

"They were then taken on to a transit camp at Sutton-on-Derwent. There they were given an outfit of clothes, a ration book, clothing coupons, pocket money, an English dictionary of simple phrases and what was most important to them - an identity card. At last they were someone, belonging to somewhere.

"It was pathetic to see them taking it out of their pockets, looking at it, over and over again.

"After being in the transit camp for a week or two, we would take them on to various places to take up some work. When they came to England they were only allowed to be miners, hospital workers or agricultural workers.

"I had lawyers, doctors, a professor of music and a ballet dancer on my list of displaced persons, but even so they were all glad to be in England and to be allowed to do a job of work."

Hilda's account concludes: "When I agreed to join the WVS and work in the station canteen I never realised that it would lead me to such a variety of jobs.

"I enjoyed every minute of my service with the WVS. There were some sad times and some glad times but I wouldn't have missed any one of them."

Updated: 08:53 Monday, January 19, 2004