TIMES PAST Helen recalls army service to help others
ONE day during training with the Royal Artillery, Helen Tocher watched in alarm as a Nazi fighter pilot hedge-hopped so low she could clearly see his face.
It was a terrifying moment in an amazing career – there were Ack-Ack guns and barrage balloons, doodlebugs and blackouts, and Helen, who was a cook, recalls taking cocoa to the officers during night raids. She was also one of the first people in Britain to see diagrams of the infamous doodlebug, or V1 flying bomb, developed by the Luftwaffe in 1939.
Helen, whose married name is Jewitt, was born in 1918 and grew up in Hamilton. She is now 103 years old and living in York. Eighty years after the conscription of women into the British Army, Helen is recalling her own experience in support of the WRAC Association.
The national military charity supports women who served in the ATS and Women’s Royal Army Corps – women of all ages, ranks and experience, who come together to share their stories and experience the camaraderie they once felt within their Corps, whether they meet in person through the various branches and interest groups across the UK, or enjoy phone contact, benevolence support or the association magazine.
The WRAC Association also works to highlight the disadvantages some women experience to this day as a result of their service.
Helen worked as a butcher in her local shop and knew that having a “man’s job” meant she was exempt from serving. So when she received her call-up papers for national service in 1942, she told them she was merely an assistant – and she was accepted.
After basic training, sleeping on a bunk bed in a billet with 13 other girls in Edinburgh, Helen was dispatched to Aldershot for cooks training. Having spent her early life in domestic service, and with butchering experience, Helen found the work easy, and she enjoyed being in the kitchens.
She attended lectures in the evenings, learning to cook for large numbers, and on special stoves under canvas cover, and as shift leader earned herself promotion to Lance Corporal.
From Aldershot, Helen was sent to London to join a battery of the 78th Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Artillery. It was at Hilly Fields in Brockley where she saw the Nazi fighter pilot. She also
recalled, at Frinton On Sea, the terrifying doodlebugs overhead and waiting to hear the engine cut out before running for shelter. One day a messenger arrived with some plans and an officer called Helen into his office to show her a diagram of a doodlebug. This was the first time the British had had any information on the bomb.
Towards the end of her time in the ATS, Helen was posted to York to work in stores. Here she was tasked with clothing the men who were being demobbed, learning to guess their sizes by eye, and collecting in all their old uniforms – they were allowed to keep only their underwear. Although she chatted with the men, they never talked about their experiences of the war, they were too sad. Helen recalls one man who had been shot down the back of his head and had severely restricted movement.
The good times in York came from meeting people from all around the world in the Navy,
Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI), but it was a more local lad who caught her eye. Denis Jewitt was a military policeman from Middlesbrough and they met at the NAAFI, got talking, and kept in touch when he was posted to Africa.
On his return they married and went on to have five children. One of her daughters went on to become a WREN (Women’s Royal Naval Service) and her family remain extremely proud of her service career.
Helen says she would have liked to have stayed on, but was demobbed in 1946.
“Women should have better recognition for their service,” she said. “My message to any young women joining today’s army is – enjoy yourselves.”
If you or someone you know would benefit from the WRAC Association, visit wraca.org.uk