Article submitted by Alison Kane

I joined the ATS on my birthday 4 March 1942 and I trained in Ballymena at St Patrick's barracks. After my training I was posted to Fleetwood in Lancashire. I worked in a big cookhouse and made sandwiches up for the soldiers. I made a lot of good friends there. The uniform was khaki jackets, skirts an overcoat and big heavy boots. Then I got posted again near Durham But my mother wasn't well at home so I came back to Larne and was stationed at the Shore front. Then I was posted again and was stationed in Brussells and I was there for over a year. Brussells was a lovely place.

Well, Mrs Humphrys and I, we went to Blackpool to see the lights with Ulsterbus Tours and we went to Fleetwood. When I had been stationed in Fleetwood I lived with a lady and man at Dryden Road. So I said lets see if we can see Dryden Road again and we took a taxi and I got my picture outside the house which I had stayed in. And it was up for sale.

I remember the time the visitors used to come to the Laharna Hotel. Huge buses used to come and take them to the hotel and I remember the horse and carts taking them up the coast. This was when I was a little girl.

When I was stationed at Ballymena the Queen Mother and her husband came They walked round and inspected us while we were on parade. It was lovely seeing the two of them.

My mother would have told me about buses coming to take children away down the coast road in case the bombs would start dropping but they didn't really come to Larne it was more in Belfast.

Special thanks goes to the Larne Millennium Initiative for its help in sourcing this story.