The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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240042 Pte. Lilian Joan Stafford Auxillary Territorial Service from:Kingstanding, Birmingham My grandmother Lily Stafford was in the ATS and had been an ack ack searchlight operator based at Penns lane Sutton Coldfield. I only know of a couple of stories about my nan I'm sure she wouldn't mind me telling you this! She had a poorly tooth and so went to see the army dentist, the dentist hurt her so she kicked him and called him an explicit word begging with b and ending in ard, she was then sent to prison for fourteen days. Another story whilst serving in Whitby she had been granted leave so was on the train back home, I think maybe changing at Crewe. She met a man standing on the platform very tall dark and handsome in a RAF uniform, the man started to make idle talk and asked where she was going, she said "home", 'where's home' he asked, she said "Kingstanding" he said 'me too', she said "oh yeah I bet" he said 'I live there too', they shared the train journey home and the rest of their lives thereafter. They married after the war was over and had four beautiful children, the eldest following in their footsteps and serving in the army from the time he was old enough to join up until the time of retirement plus some. My nan also said that serving in the army during WW2 were the best days of her life, she loved army life. I'm glad that I am able to tell her story as I cannot find anything about her. All that I know is she, like others, were very brave and need to be remembered and thanked for allowing our freedom that we have today. Add to this record.  Related Content: Auxiliary Territorial Service Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.