‘Heavens, I don’t even know when her birthday is.’

‘Then it’s time you found out, my boy.’ Lizzie leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘You’re so handsome and clever, Vic. She’d be mad to turn you down. But keep me posted on your progress, won’t you?’

Kath’s letter was waiting for him at his lodgings.

Dear Vic,

The next time you write, please address me as Aircraft Woman Level Two Motts!

Yes, I’ve made it and, better still, you’ll be proud to hear that I passed the interviews. Do you remember what you told me, one day on the Cliff Walk? Of course I still haven’t a clue what the work really entails, but if it turns out to be rubbish I will hold you fully accountable.

We’re currently completing our initial training in a seaside resort and it feels distinctly strange. We are billeted in holiday boarding houses and even though it rains most of the time we feel we should be gathering our towels, deckchairs and windbreaks and heading for the beach each morning, but alas instead it’s ‘spit and polish’, drill and PE, lectures, gas drills, more lectures and endless marching.

At least it’s better than the dreadful camp where we spent our induction. Our landlady is an excellent cook, the food is plentiful and we’re allowed some time for rest and recuperation. We’re all girls of course, and our weekly £10/6d (!) doesn’t go far as you can imagine, but we manage to have fun anyway. Ma sent me half a crown which meant we could go to the Winter Gardens last night and pretend to be posh. It was lovely to have a bit of glamour after all that trudging about in mud and sleeping in damp huts. The band played ‘Oh, I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’. We bellowed out the words and made them play it again!

One of our number claims to be a relative of Lupino Lane and after a few drinks she actually stood up and sang ‘Doing the Lambeth Walk’ with the orchestra. She made a pretty good fist of it, too, doing all his actions, even though it looked pretty incongruous in her ill-fitting WAAF uniform!

Soon we leave for our technical training somewhere we haven’t yet been told, but you probably know where these things happen. I’ll send you an address as soon as I know. I wonder where you are, and whether it is anywhere near?

If this reaches you in time, have a wonderful, peaceful Christmas. I miss our chats, and hope you are well?

Fondest regards,

Kath

As he read to the end of the letter, his head began to spin. She remembered their conversation on the Cliff Walk. She missed their chats. She was learning all about his inventions. He lay back on his bed, holding the envelope to his chest and smiling to himself.

Yet even as his heart rejoiced, he felt a pang of envy, even fear. They might be ‘all girls’ on the initial training, but the technical training would almost certainly be at RAF Cranwell. He’d spent several weeks there himself, and knew all too well the social whirlwind in which Kath would find herself. Hundreds of recruits, male and female, were trained there, as aircrew and in all kinds of wireless operation. The place was enormous and the facilities excellent. There were several Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, the NAAFIs, serving good food as well as supplying basic necessities such as toiletries, dancehalls, cinemas and entertainment of all kinds. There would be any number of single men, handsome in their uniforms, ready to steal the heart of a beautiful young woman like Kath.