When the Royal Marine Band and military recruiters visited her school, Diane was immediately drawn to the idea of joining the armed forces. She first applied to the Royal Navy, but the prospect of being posted to her home town of Plymouth didn’t offer the adventure she was looking for. Then she learned that the Army could send her further afield — and that was all the encouragement she needed. At just seventeen, she enlisted, and her journey with the Women’s Royal Army Corps began.

After her initial training at Guildford, Diane was posted to Kineton where she worked with classified documents and ammunition. She was then posted to Northern Ireland as a volunteer searcher and worked alongside the Royal Military Police. Diane describes the issues women faced in the army, and the mistreatment of female corps by male soldiers. Whilst in this posting she experienced the bombing of Newry in 1980 and soon after decided to leave Ireland. Diane was then moved to Berlin where she worked as a clerk for the Royal Transport Corps.

Although Diane feels forever connected to the WRAC, she felt strongly that there were innate issues with the female corps surrounding pay discrepancy, limited opportunities for women on the front-line, and multiple attempts to stop women’s careers on the conditions of marriage and pregnancy.