Donnington WW2

[maxcam]

Hi out there,

My late mother served in the WRAC at Donnington Camp during WW2 and I would dearly love any information any one has regarding the above.

Her name was Margaret Stephen and although she never really spoke too much about her time there she was always very proud of the camaderie and friendships which she found there. I have a picture of her, two stripes, in which she looks like a sumo wrestler, nothing like her at all but she put it down to the awful food. For the rest of her life she never took sugar in her tea because it was so hard to come by. She could make one cake of soap last for a month or more and as for bath towels, who needs them when you have a flannel to dry yourself?

She never made it back to Donnington, are there any buildings still standing on the old camp? Is it worth a visit?
Thanks

[millymcb]

Hello

WRAC was not formed until 1949 so she would not have been WRAC in WW2. 

If she served during WW2 it was most likely with the ATS.   
She may have stayed on and moved over to WRAC later - or perhaps she was WRAC but only after the war.
You can read a bit about ATS and women's war roles here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Territorial_Service

and there is some lovely newsreel of ATS women http://www.britishpathe.com
Search for ATS and have a look if you are interested


There is one filmed at an ordnance depot and has lots of pictures of the women doing a variety of jobs - some of them very industrial.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/a-t-s-at-ordnance-depot-1942/query/ATS
Interestingly, there was a Central Ordnance Depot at Donnington
http://shropshirehistory.com/military/militarysites.htm
 - and you never know - it may be there that they filmed (you might get lucky )....although it is more likely they filmed somewhere closer to London.

And there is an interesting war memory item here about a woman who was in ATS at Donnington
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/44/a3658944.shtml
And another here
http://www.atsremembered.org.uk/westsheetpdf.pdf


Milly

[maxcam]

Of Course it was ATS. Put my slip down to old age. Thanks for all that info. I will take my time and work through it

[Christine47]

Of Course it was ATS. Put my slip down to old age. Thanks for all that info. I will take my time and work through it

Both my parents were stationed at Donnington during the war that's how they met. Neither of them have really said a great deal about their time there, my mother is still alive and is 92. When I saw the comment about the flannel it made me smile, as a child after a bath my mother would always give me a flannel "to take the water off" before drying with a towel. She still uses a flannel now. The one thing she does say is " I was 8 st 11lbs on the day I went in and I was exactly the same the day I came out". No wonder with all the exercise she got.

[maxcam]

What a wonderful story re your parents. I have a group photograph taken at Donnington so I will try to master the Scan technique and  who knows you may well recognise someone. Do you know if anything of the old camp still exists?

[Christine47]

What a wonderful story re your parents. I have a group photograph taken at Donnington so I will try to master the Scan technique and  who knows you may well recognise someone. Do you know if anything of the old camp still exists?
[/

[Brewins girl]

A note of caution - my uncle was based for a while at Donnington Camp, but that was near Chichester, West Sussex. I also learned that there was a military base (vehicle depot & storage) at Donington (one ‘n’) in Leicestershire. My guess is that your parents were at the camp in Shropshire (there were 3 POW camps there) but better to double check.

[Christine47]

Maxcam
My mother who is now 98 is now living in a care home and I have found an envelope with photos in of girls she was stationed with. There are only first names on the backs of photos but I will look again at the names, you never know what you find.

[Brewins girl]

I wish you luck. I am currently writing a book based around a collection of wartime letters and photographs and have found it absolutely fascinating and compelling, researching my family's history and the context in which the letters were written and the photographs were taken. Is your mother able to help you? (or indeed would seeing the photographs and talking about them help her?)