When the Second World War started, Pauline Payne was just 13 years old. Excited by the prospect, she initially wanted to join the Land Army, however quickly changed her mind after being tested by her father on her level of commitment.  Instead, at age 17, she joined the FANY, which was assuredly much safer. As an only child it took Pauline a lot of getting used to, particularly the switch from having her own bedroom to sleeping in shared quarters with 32 other beds, however she recalls greatly enjoying the social side of life within the FANY. She was encouraged to go to dances, and remembers the excitement of the Americans arriving, bringing with them more food and cigarettes, which she would swap for soap. Throughout the war, Pauline would work at a number of SOE stations in Britain. To get a signal, she remembers having to stand on duck boards holding a large electric coil, listening out for messages from agents working in Europe.  It wasn’t until after the war that Pauline realised the importance of her work on transmitters. Being young and very inexperienced, it was her first experience of war, and for a long time she'd never had to consider the prospect of people being killed. With a lot at stake, maintaining a good atmosphere within the FANY was very important. Pauline remembers her involvement with much enjoyment, and considers it to be a liberating time in her life.

In this interview, listen to Joy talk about her rare and exciting opportunity to fly with ATA in the famous spitfire plane. Born in Cirencester, Joy was raised in the countryside where she learned to be strong and independent, always striving to be the best she could possibly be. When her sister joined the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary), it was only a matter of time before Joy's fierce competitive edge would cause her to follow in her sister's footsteps and join up as well. Although Joy found her training quite difficult due to the tough weather conditions which made her experience more challenging; she soon found her rhythm and was accepted to fly possibly the most iconic plane from the WWII era: the spitfire. However, as the war progressed, there became less and less of a need for women pilots in the eyes of the military, so Joy's original pool was disbanded. In the interview, Joy speaks on her experience of moving pools not once but twice! She also explains how the different ranks in the ATA work, as well as talk about an intense emergency landing that forced her to hitchhike back home, in additional to what made the American bases so much more exciting.

Doreen was studying German at university in WW2 when she was called up, age 20, and assigned to Naval Intelligence at Bletchley Park. This was in June 1944 at the start of the German V1 ‘flying bomb’ offensive. She was part of the Ultra intelligence unit and translated de-coded documents intercepted from the German Enigma system. After translation she classified and sorted the documents so that they could be accessed by senior officers. She worked in the same hut as Alan Turing, one of the crucial scientists in the Ultra system. One of the main tasks she worked on was tracking U-boat movements in the Atlantic as they tried to threaten Allied convoys. She also worked on locating the German battleship Tirpitz so that it could be attacked and sunk by the RAF. After the end of the war she was assigned to Berlin, in occupied Germany, where her knowledge of German and military procedure stood her in good stead. She worked with senior officers in Naval Intelligence and was in Berlin during the first part of the Airlift. After two years in Germany she returned to Britain. Here she worked for the War Office, translating documents for the War Crimes tribunal. This task she found both horrific and interesting. When this ended Doreen found a job outside the service, at Lloyds Bank. She was employed in their foreign section, where the red tape was worse than in the intelligence services! This irritated her and she left after one year.