Pauline Sperring

I was a Wren Transport Driver, stationed in Portsmouth Command during World War II and Bletchley Park came within my duties. My job at the time was called ‘The Thatcham Run’ – not many of the girls were keen to take it on, as it was a very long day, six days a week, covering almost 2,000 miles.

I would clock in at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard at 7:30 am each day, as I had to hose down and make sure my vehicle was clean. Then leave the Dockyard sharp on 8 am and head for Portsmouth Royal Naval Barracks in Queens Street. There I would collect a large amount of good sized wooden sealed dispatch boxes (and very occasionally one or two Naval personnel, who had to sit in the back of the small ‘Standard’ van – not very comfortable, poor things). I would then start my long journey heading for: Fareham, Winchester, Whitchurch, Hungerford, Newbury, Thatcham, Wantage, Witney, Bicester, Bletchley Park, and many more Naval Stations on route, delivering the sealed dispatch boxes and other important paper work. Bletchley Park was the only place for which I was also postman: each day I would go to the GPO in Newbury and collect a large bag of mail to deliver to BP, where I picked up a full bag to be mailed on my return journey.

On my stop in the morning in Newbury, I would go for a coffee at the “Copper Kettle” – my only break of about half an hour during the whole day. I would take sandwiches to eat for my lunch whilst driving, as to have stopped for a proper lunch would have made me arrive back in Portsmouth Dockyard even later. (These days so many hours driving would not be allowed – and I was only 18/19 years old). In those days there were no motorways, there was no Milton Keynes – it was all country roads, villages, and small towns. No signposts even (they had all been removed in case of invasion) so the first couple of trips were quite hair-raising trying to find one’s way.

I would then make tracks to head back to Portsmouth, arriving back at the Dockyard about 6:30 or 7 pm. But I was not finished; I had to go to the dockyard garage and top up with petrol, check tyres, water, and oil, and then drive round to ‘Short Row’ in the dockyard where all the RN vehicles were parked every night. Lorries, cars, vans, etc., with the keys left in every vehicle, so anyone could drive the transport away in case of fire bombs at night.

My job then was to fill in my daily work sheet: hours, mileage, petrol etc. and return to the WRNS transport office and give my work sheet to the duty Wren PO. Then I was finished – all for the grand sum of 2/- per day (10p now). But for all that I did love the WRNS and my time till after the war ended.

At one time we, the Wren drivers, were taught to use a service revolver. This was because, at that period of the war, there was a real threat of an invasion, and it was thought if we were in a vehicle and  paratroops had dropped, they would certainly try to obtain some transport, so we should be able to defend ourselves. But it did not happen, thank God.