At just 14-years-old, Phyllis Spaul decided she wanted to do her bit for King and country. Now aged 83, she told DAVID MILLS about her memories from the Second World War.

PHYLLIS Spaul began doing her bit for the war effort in 1940 by manning the phones at the Western Ophthalmic Hospital in Marylebone in case warnings of air raids came through.

During the war Phyllis had full time jobs at the Army and Navy Stores, for London County Council and for the Ministry of Labour.

And twice a week after doing her full-time job, she would go back to her home near Edgware Road in London to put her feet up and have a cup of tea before picking up her gas mask and tin hat and heading out for her 7pm to 7am shift.

Phyllis said: “If there was an air raid going on you didn’t know what was going to happen.

“There was an air raid every day for at least 30 nights at one time. It was really awful.”

As well as being on air raid alert, she would take the names and addresses of injured people, and if hospital staff were busy she would put medical instruments into a steriliser.

She said: “Whatever was needed you all chipped in and did something.”

Phyllis, who now lives in Blake Gardens, Temple Hill, sometimes had the more unusual job of being a guinea pig for a mustard gas attack, wearing just a swimming costume.

The mother-of-two said: “All I know is I had this horrible geranium smell. I can’t stand the smell of geraniums, it reminds me of mustard gas.

“Mustard gas dissolves your lungs, it could burn your eyes.

“I often wonder if sometimes when I have a bad cold, have I got traces of mustard gas?”

One memory which stands out for her is being blown across a room by a bomb blast. She was not injured.

Phyllis also remembers an elderly woman who had been buried beneath rubble for three days.

She said: “Her forearm was hanging off and she was calling Hitler all the things I had never heard of before.

“She was coated in lath and plaster. She was filthy. But it wasn’t anything unusual being buried for three days.”

The grandmother-of-two also recalls watching a German pilot falling from his plane.

She said: “The pilot popped out in his parachute and landed at Victoria. I saw the wings of the plane come off. They fell like feathers.”

More tragic memories include the death of a girl from Phyllis’s class at school.

She said: “She was lying in bed, her dad was talking to her. It was a very bad air raid that night. A bomb dropped and the blast killed her.”

Phyllis says she never hears anything about the people who worked as part of the civil defence, and wonders if they have ever been recognised for the work they did during the war.

She said: “I wondered is there anybody about who was in the civil defence during the war. You never hear anybody mention them.

“I’d like to know is there anyone about from the Westminster area where I was, or have I lived too long?”

Phyllis, who was part of the civil defence until May 1945, says she could never forget the war.

She said: “I think about the war whenever it’s going on, I think war’s just a terrible shame. The war is engraved on my mind, how can you forget something like that? The more you think about it, the more you remember.

“The civil defence was very important during the war, it saved a lot of people’s lives.”

WHAT WAS THE CIVIL DEFENCE?

The bulk of the civil defence effort went towards protecting the country from air raids, which were a major threat to millions of people.

An auxiliary fire service was set up to deal with fires caused by bombs.

Air raid precaution wardens were installed to monitor precautions such as blackout restrictions and ensure they were properly enforced.

Provision was also made for medical and rescue parties and finding ways of rescuing, transporting and treating casualties.

The other major aspect to civil defence was the evacuation of children, the sick and government business.