263012 Pte. Gwenneth Pauline Lawrence Auxiliary Territorial Service My mum, Gwen Lawrence was 14 when the second world war broke it.
Her mother wanted her to be evacuated to Canada but she refused to go. My grandmother lived in a pub in Portsmouth and the city was badly bombed.
My mum was worried that the war would be over before she could enlist and do her bit. So as soon as she turned 16 yrs she and a friend tried to join the land army and the WAAF, but both wanted to see your birth certificate.
The ATS, however, was desperate for young women to join up and didn't request to see a birth certificate. So two weeks after my mum's 16th birthday she persuaded her mother to sign the necessary papers for her to join up. She and her friend went to Droitwich initially to the ATS Training Centre and then mum trained as a plotter.
She worked at RAF Uxbridge, relaying the plots from the RAF to the ack-ack guns and she was there during the invasion of Europe on 6th of June 1944.
Soon after this mum was sent to Naples, Italy a long journey by ship and it was while she was there that the end of the war was proclaimed. Obviously not everyone could be sent back to the UK at the same time. Mum was sent on a music course in Florence just to pass the time while waiting for demob. She was billeted in a hotel which is still there now. When she entered the hotel there was a man sitting in the reception area who was playing the piano. He made sure he sat next to my mum during the course and they soon became more than friends. This man was Maurice White, and after the war they returned to the UK and were married in February 1947.
They were together for 65 years before Dad died in 2012 and then Mum in 2013.
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