On the railway

Before the war started, I was employed by the London North-Eastern railway, Tyneside Electrifed area (now the metro) as a parcels clark at Whitley Bay station. Several male clarks were enlisted in the TA and I replaced one of them as a booking clark at Monkseaton. I was on shift work on early shift. I started at 5am till 1pm. Most of the early passengers were wokers going to the shipyards. Later in the day, some of my duties included finding good routes for servicemen going on leave. Some to remote parts of the UK. The next week, on back shift, I started at 5pm till midnight. At about 5pm, the senior staff left and I was alone for the rest of the night. During the frequent air raids, I had to remain on duty. My only protection being a "tin helmet" and a table to duck under in an emergency.
On one occasion, I was serving an aggetated passenger when a bomb came wistling down. We both ducked then after the explosion we got up. "I'm not so cherpy now" he said as he picked up his ticket and dashed to the train leaving me to "soldier on" till it was time to cycle home. Cycling through the blackouts was quite an eary experience. Changing shifts from back shift to early shift meant I only had 4hours sleep on a saturday night. The compensation came on the alternate change when I had a long weekend break.
Air raids were less frequent after D-Day and another of my duties was to train women, (many of them much older than myself) as booking clarks.
The cameradarie throughout the nation was a great help during the more stressful events of that period.

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