225108 Cpl. Lena "Titch" Crawford WAAF At the age of 21 years I was called up to join the WRAF. I had to report to Somerset House in London. I was billeted in RAF Benson in Oxford. I worked in the Laundry and in the canteen. I met Paddy Finnegan (The Legless Pilot) and Vera Lynn “the forces Sweetheart”. She came to RAF Benson to entertain the troops by singing “The white cliffs of Dover”. After she had entertained the troops she came and had tea with me and my colleagues. She also took a photograph of us all. I was a corporal in the RAF and my men used to call me “Titch”. I served between 1940 and 1944. I was often moved about, when in the RAF, sometimes I was in the laundry doing the airmen’s bundles and sometimes I was in the canteen. I still have a scar on my hand, where I opened hundreds of tins of corned beef! I didn’t mind and during the War you just had to get on with it and do as you were told. I also packed the parachutes. This was obviously a very important job, because if you got it wrong, lives depended on it!
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