The advertisement said to join so you could free a sailor to go to sea, meaning a lot of the recommended could be done by girls and so that is how it started. We saw ships coming they have been repaired in the document. Meanwhile we one ran the plot up meanwhile we one ran the plot up in belfast and have the whole west coast and the whole atlantic on the wall. Once i was watching the ships coming in to the wall from the castle offers, and i saw a ship, a destroyer coming in, and she had been involved in various battles in the atlantic, and needed some repairs, so had her repairs done in belfast. Survey first opportunity, the first thing the wrens did on their arrival was to send a message, asking us down to have a drink on board. They had their priority is honestly right i so half a dozen of us went down to have a drink on board and there i metjohn lamb, my future husband, and in ten days we decided to get married. The next morning, they sailed off tojoin this convoy, next morning, they sailed off to join this convoy, which was leaving just north of belfast. Absolutely vital. We have the most terrible rationing. About a0 u boats were waiting for them to attack them. They manage to sing about 12 of our ships before we get anything back. At this point, hms was one of the part of the escort of this convoy. We didnt have information we would have liked it but we had a certain information that was what was going on. John had beenin been in bed, lying in place near the bridge. Only to find that his ship, hms oribi, had rammed a u boat. And they had actually, were now sort of riding on the side of the ship. It was the most extraordinary state to be in. Of course it was terrible anxiety, and all my friends tried to persuade me to go back and not to pay attention, but i couldnt possibly leave the scene. It was a matter of complete life or death to me, and i stayed there waiting for information, hoping for information, and just waiting, hopefully and luckily eventually we had more information to say that they had actually managed to sink this u boat, and were on their way back. They were able to crawl back to canada this time, they were the other side of the atlantic, and so they managed to get back at about 12 knots, which is a safe speed they could go at. When eventually he arrived in canada, he was able to ring me up and say he had arrived safely. Well, it was amazing of course, and you know, we just both felt, well, theres nothing you could say just thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness. You know, thats all you could do. You couldnt look far into the future, you might only have had a fortnight� s leave and he may be killed at the end of it. You had no idea what was going to happen, so you just put up with it, and if something was there, the present, it was there, you did it. Whatever. I grew up in the countryside, in lancashire, in my grandfathers house. He had a refugee cook from austria, and a refugee housemaid. And when they came, they didnt speak any english. He gave me a small german dictionary, so i used to spend my evenings as a Schoolgirl Sitting with mrs geltzel, it meant that we were talking more in german than english. I neverfound languages a problem in fact german turned out to be a rather useful language to have during the war. We trained at mill hill, and wimbledon, and then we were sent to little coastal listening stations. My first station was on the yorkshire coast, at a place called withernsea, because we had very good reception from the baltic. And the german naval ships used to talk coming out of the baltic or leaving their bases in the baltic. And at withernsea, we used to search their wavelengths, write down everything we heard. They kept Radio Silence most of the time, but we were searching up and down their Radio Frequencies in our little secret stations. And i think we probably got a fair amount of useful information. And we passed the coded messages to bletchley park, and the plain language messages to the nearest Naval Intelligence centre. They would sometimes have a bit of chat, you know, did you know so and so� s boat are all going on leave next week . And the one that picked it up said. Speaks german. Oh, theyre all going to make babies. And we all wrote it down, because the rule was that everything you heard, you logged. And it might be useful for our side to know that these crews were going on leave, these boats would not be operating. Even bits of gossip like that could come in useful, so we wrote everything down. I was transferred to a station between dover and folkestone, where we could hear, very loud and clear, german naval ships warming up in the harbours opposite, or going down the channel. We worked what we called watches, which would be called shifts, so many hours on, four hours on, eight hours off, that sort of thing. I had been on watch overnight, i came out in the morning, about eight oclock, and there was a party of people coming up the path towards our cliff. And i recognised in the middle of this group, Winston Churchill and general eisenhower, and they were with a group of officers. And you were supposed to salute people of that rank, but as i had been on duty all night, and wasjust informally dressed, all i could do was wave and say good morning and so they all waved back and said good morning, and they went on their way to the edge of our cliff. And in fact, much later on, i heard that churchill wanted it to be reported back that he and eisenhower had been down on the kent coast, to deceive the germans into thinking that landings were going to be in kent, into the calais area, whereas of course we were going to land much further west in normandy. That ploy worked. I went in in early � ai. I went to devizes, to learn gunnery, as it was called. I was a Height Finder, plotter. When the german aircraft came across, now the Height Finder was nine foot long, about that fat round, and it was on a plinth. Which, you moved it around. You followed the aircraft. And i had, one like that, very similar. That had. Cutouts for my four fingers. And i looked into two strong scopes. Metal round there, and magnifiers in there. I could use that eye, that eye, or both. The girl that was next to me, who became my mate, she turned a wheel, and she looked into one scope, and she had to get any part of the aircraft as fast as she could onto that line, and keep it there. Whereas i had two aircraft to align, one right way up, one wrong way up. And as soon as you got them level, whatever part you was on, whether it was tailfin, tail plane. Nose, whatever. You had to work fast, and then you called to the number one, on target, and she would read out the figures. So i was doing height, the other girl was doing range. She was calling out figures. That went to the guns in big pipes. So, remember, we are walking over them pipes not treading on them, walking over them. Sometimes almost falling over. That was ourjob. So, i applied tojoin the wrens in march i9aa. And when i told them that i was a gpo trained switchboard operator, i could tell more or less that id be accepted. Portsmouth in march april i9aa was a hive of activity. But the thing is fort southwick, which was our working place, was a very secret Communications Centre deep dug deep into tunnels in the cliffs overlooking portsmouth harbour. But to get down into the tunnels, we had to go down 350 steps we had to sleep in the tunnels, eat in the tunnels, be on duty in the tunnels and, of course, chuckles, when we were coming off shift, we had to come up 350 steps, so it was a good thing we were young and fit. Chuckles. The amount of activity in the tunnels i mean, each tunnel contained a branch of communications. Two months before d day, i was given training on this vhf set, which was a small radio set. And i think vhf then was in its infancy. It was simple for us to operate. You mainly had to operate the levers up or down. As it was a one way system, i would pass whatever messages i had to and then, they would lift their lever and pass their responses. And it was when they lifted their lever that i realised i was listening to warfare. Because they were landing on the beaches, and i could hear it. I could hear it all gunfire, machine guns, cannon, screaming, men men shouting, orders being shouted, all manner of things. You suddenly thought, this is a war. I really had the war in my ears and it made me very much aware of what was at stake. So, you know, ithink it taught me a lesson about war although i was a non combatant, of course. Nevertheless, i heard war at a very, very close source because not only did i have that experience on d day, but id lived through the blitz as well. File early in the enemys intensified air attacks on london, bombs were dropped on the dockland area. And i can vividly remember the night they blitzed the dock the docks. The whole of dockland was alight and you could see from the sky, the whole sky was red. We had to go down to the tube station at Clapham North because that was the only really effective shelter you could find. I think we all, really, were terrified. So, i knew what bombing was like to be at the other end of the bombing, you know . The recipient of it. So, no, i for me, war is something that should be avoided at all costs. We were told that there was going that there would be an official photographer coming down to the tunnels, so i had a somebody i knew in the tunnels, a young sailor, and i asked him if i could borrow his white top, you know, with the navy beading across. Im now sure that if it were known by the officers that this is what i planned to do, it would have been frowned upon very definitely. But i went ahead nobody knew and so, my photograph exists of a wren hat in at a rather perky angle and a white top that i shouldnt have been wearing. King george vi came down to visit us all in the fort. He toured a lot of the tunnels. I think there was a lift for vips dont think he had to travel those 350 steps however, on the parade ground, he took the salute and we all marched past and at the end, he thanked us all for our contribution to the Effort To The War effort. That was a moment of great pride. The wrens couldnt march wonderfully well because we werent required to do so, so i only hope we kept in step chuckles. When i heard that the war was over, we were all overjoyed. And for me, it meant demobilisation, so i came down to london and was demobbed in august i9a6. So, it wasnt a long service but an eventful one and, for me, it was probably the most meaningful episode of my life. Hello there. Some of you may be forgiven for thinking that summer has returned this weekend. Yes, for some of you, the weather is set to get a lot warmer. But before you get there, at the moment, cloud is thickening to our west and we have rain on the way as well for quite a few. Now were starting to see rain edge into northern ireland. Thats going to be turning steadier and heavier over the next few hours, but some patches of rain also for the southwest of scotland, the north west of both england and wales. With extensive cloud around, its a mild start to thursday morning, with temperatures into double figures widely. But across the northern half of scotland, with some clearer skies here were starting on a chilly note. Now, through thursday, this low pressure is the system thats bringing the rain. So its going to be quite windy. You can see some fairly tightly packed isobars there. The rain at its heaviest in the morning across northern ireland. That wetter weather then swings across scotland, northern england, wales and some damp weather too, for the midlands for a time, east anglia and southern parts of england probably staying dry until after dark, with some bright spells coming through the cloud. And for many areas of the uk, temperatures are running above average. Now eventually you might see a little bit of Rain Thursday evening trickling down across parts of Southern England and east anglia, but it wont really amount to very much. On into fridays forecast, weve got another zone of rain pushing into western scotland. The rain now clearing further southwards as this ridge of High Pressure starts to build in, and that should mean that the weather becomes increasingly dry. Therell be a bit more sunshine to go around and those temperatures are creeping up 22 in london, while the average for this time of the year in the capital is 16 degrees. Now, the process of that High Pressure really starting to flex its muscles continues into the weekend. Pushing the band of rain ever further northwards across scotland where it could be quite wet across Northern Areas of scotland on saturday. Otherwise, lots of sunshine around and those temperatures climbing. Well, we could see highs of 26, maybe a 27 this weekend in the very warmest areas. Certainly those temperatures are a long, long way above average. And if we look at temperatures in october now, we often see the highest temperatures in a month getting to the low 20s, but its quite rare to see temperatures up to 26 or 27. That would make it one of the hotter days that weve seen in october in this country. Live from washington, this is bbc news. A speaker is ousted, and the run off for a replacement begins. We look at who could fill Kevin Mccarthys position. Funding for ukraine played a vital role in the congressional drama. We look at why us Public Opinion is shifting on washingtons commitment to kyiv. Plus, the Biggest Health care strike in us history gets under way. Well hear from a spokesperson from Kaiser Permanentes union. Hello, im helena humphrey. Its good to have you with us. We start here in washington, where the race to become the next speaker of the house is under way, with a pair of lawmakers now vying to replace kevin mccarthy. On tuesday, he became the first speaker in history be removed from the position. So far, two republican have confirmed they will run for thejob. Ohio representativejim jordan on the left, and Steve Scalise of louisiana on the right, who is already the Majority Leader of the house. Mrjordan is known as a hardline conservative and staunch supporter of former president donald trump. Hes also a strong opponent of current president joe biden, leading multiple investigations into the Biden Administration as chair of the housejudiciary committee. Representative Steve Scalise, is the chamber� s number two ranking republican and has served in Congress Since 2008