Mary – not her real name – was brought up in Ashwood Road and her grandfather
lived in Knaphill. The book has many mentions of Woking. Paperback and kindle versions are available.
BRAVE FACES
Synopsis
As the Second World War breaks out,
Mary’s parents are determined that their daughter’s privileged upbringing should
continue, and that life should carry on as much as normal. She is sent to
finishing school and becomes a debutante attending ‘coming out’ balls in London,
despite the nightly bombing raids.
However, Mary is determined to do
her bit for the war effort, and volunteers to serve as a Red Cross Nurse, before
joining the WRNS.
Accepted into the WRNS, not as an
officer, but as ‘other rank’, Mary has to learn to live a very different kind of
life to the one she was brought up to expect. She is used to being chaperoned,
only talking to men she has been ‘introduced’ to, so it’s an almost impossible
task for her Senior Wren Officer to find a suitable category for this naive
girl. Mary finally becomes part of a new elite category known as Night Vision
Testers, training the young pilots to see in the dark so they can land their
planes on the deck of their aircraft carrier and not in the sea.
As the war progresses Mary moves
from one Naval Air Station to another. Her tasks become stranger than fiction
and her duties are definitely outside her job description – and most probably
outside the rules too.
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