Military

"A very entertaining account" Daily Telegraph

"I guarantee regular guffaws from any reader... It is an important contribution to our understanding of those far-off days."
Naval Review

 
WREN's Eye View

Adventures of a Visual Signaller

by Stephanie Batstone

New Edition - with Jack Campbell's D-Day

Oban, Scotland, World War II: a Signal Station on the Firth of Lorne. Every passing ship, from the Morag Jane to the Duke of York had to be challenged and identified.

Stephanie volunteered for signalling to "free a man for the fleet." Like all the trainee Wrens at HMS Cabbala, she hoped to go to Portsmouth, but the Navy sent her to the Highlands, and a life of constant struggle for dry clothes, sleep, warmth, food and the forbidden pastime of Getting On a Boat.

Yet Stephanie loved her vocation. Complete mistress of the Aldis lamp, she could converse with sailors by Morse code at a speed no officer could read. In this way, she 'picked up' Jack from Ohio. When he abruptly sailed for D-Day, she thought he had perished.

Then, 57 years later, a telephone call from America . . . .

This witty, poignant and popular book is a rare gem - the authentic voice of a War generation woman who is also a natural writer.