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 Portsmouth Royal Dockyard at 7:30 am each day, as one had to hose down and make sure your 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. Also Bletchley Park was the only place, where I would go to the G.P.O in Newbury & collect a large bag of mail each day and on my return each day with a full bag to be mailed. 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 the whole day. I would take sandwiches to eat whilst driving, for my lunch, 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 at 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 ones way.
I would then make tracks to head back to Portsmouth, arriving back at the Dockyard about 6:30/7 pm- but I was not finished, I had to go to the dockyard garage and top up with petrol, check tyres, water oil, then round to ‘Short Row’ in the dockyard where all the R.N. vehicles were parked every night, lorries, cars, vans, etc; the keys then had to be left in every vehicle, in case of fire bombs at night, so anyone could drive the transport away. My job then was to fill in my daily work sheet, hours, mileage, petrol etc; and return to the Wrens transport office and give my work sheet to the duty Wren P.O. –then I was finished- all for the grand sum of 2/- per day (10p now) - but for all that I did love the WRENS and my time till after the war ended. At one time we, the Wren drivers, were taught to use a service revolver, due to there being at that period of the war, a real threat of an invasion, and it was thought if we were in a vehicle and a paratrooper 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.