Kay volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a teenager in 1940. Toward the end of her training three ATS women were killed in Chatham and she volunteered as one of the replacements. This assignment was in the Y service, which was a worldwide network of intelligence gathering. Her work involved receiving messages from around the world, transcribing them so that they could be evaluated and passed on to various units. Some went to the Ultra decoding group at Bletchley Park. After several different locations her unit was sent to disguised purpose-built offices near Loughborough. Here she spent the next five years until the end of the war, which they knew was imminent when they received an uncoded message from Germany ‘Der Fuhrer ist kaput’! When the war ended she held the rank of sergeant. She was sworn to secrecy and did not talk about her work for thirty years, which irritated her mother. During her time in the Y service, she worked with Special Operations Executive and intelligence officers, including Kim Philby. She thinks that her work during the was worthwhile and has been told that it may have shortened the war by up to two years. In 1945 she married a man she met working at the same establishment, and they were both demobbed that year. She became a borough councillor and was thinking of standing as an MP but instead went with her husband to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where they lived and worked for fifteen years.

Joan Nicholls left school at only fourteen and concealed her age to enlist in the ATS. After undergoing rigorous testing and training at Fenham Barracks and Trowbridge, she arrived at Beaumanor Hall in March 1942. Joan describes the design and operation of the Beaumanor Y-Station and its significance to the Ultra cryptography project. She listened to and recorded German Morse transmissions, which were relayed to Station X (Bletchley Park) for decoding. Joan followed General Erwin Rommel throughout North Africa until the pivotal battle of El-Alamein, while catching snippets of other transmissions from Nazi Concentration Camps and the aftermath of D-Day. She describes developing a familiarity and respect for the German transmitters and the cat-and-mouse games of chasing them through different frequencies. Throughout the interview, Joan emphasises the importance of keeping her role a secret, even from those closest to her. It is only decades later that the Y-Service's efforts and sacrifices are publicly acknowledged. Unfortunately, she was never able to tell her father the true nature of her work.

This film captures Year 10 students from Wildern School, Hedge End engaging in a unique oral history project, exploring the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC). The project was run by Legasee with support from the WRAC Association and Adjutant General's Corps (AGC) Museum in Winchester. The workshops fostered critical thinking, curiosity, and enquiry as students developed their knowledge of some of the challenges faced by Britain and the wider world in the 20th century - one of the content requirements of the English National Curriculum for History at Key Stage 3. Through their research about the WRAC, and perceptive questioning of Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Sue Westlake, MBE, the students examined the complexities of life during the Cold War and the evolving role of women in the military. By connecting with lived experiences, students practised essential skills like communication, confidence, and evidence-based reasoning. With thanks to the staff at Wildern School for welcoming Legasee in, and encouraging their young historians to develop new perspectives on societal change, gender equality, and British military conflicts in the second half of the 20th century.