From her home on the Isle of Wight, spritely Monica Wickenden, 97, looks out across the Solent towards her old base at Gosport and remembers the joy she felt at the end of the war.
Monica, (Mo to friends and family), will be singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ at her home in Ryde to celebrate VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) today – and at the very least to help relieve some of the monotony of the current coronavirus lockdown.
Mo joined the WRENS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) aged 21 in 1944 and was stationed in HMS Hornet in Gosport. She lived in converted private houses taken over by the Admiralty in Fort Road, Alverstoke.
1 of 10 children – 7 girls and 3 boys – she came originally from Wallasey in Merseyside, Cheshire. The family, who had a makeshift shelter in the garden, regularly came a whisker from death as German bombs fell.
One night she’ll never forget. “The carnage was indescribable. Whole roads had just vanished.”
As soon as she arrived at Gosport she was given a bicycle to get to work, even though she had never learnt to ride one. Mo said:
“I had to learn to ride a bike that night.”
She remembers going to a converted children’s home to care for men wounded in action.
“I saw many sad cases. We were asked to sit and chat with the wounded men or write letters to their loved ones. Some were blind, others had awful injuries.”
On one occasion a V1 bomb came close to hitting her quarters but fortunately ended in the Solent.
Mo was heartbroken when she heard her brother Paul, a sergeant in the RAF, was killed in 1940.
When it was announced that war was over, on 8th May 1945, she was with her sister Dolores, a member of the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service), who was visiting. She recalls:
“We were so excited. We were wearing each other’s hats and shouting ‘the war’s over. Hooray.’”
She stayed on in Gosport after the war and in 1948 joined troopship, The Empress of Australia, en route to Malta. It’s where she met her husband, John Wickenden, who was in the Royal Navy. Back in the UK after demob, they married in 1951.
John sadly died not long after they moved to the Isle of Wight in 1988, but the couple enjoyed 38 happy years together. Mo has a son, Paul, who lives in Plymouth, and 2 grandchildren.
Report by Peter Gruner
After surviving all that lets hope she keeps safe now from this invisible enemy within.
Great memories for her, and sadly, unlike the horrific, yet now exciting tales from those who survived the war days, this new horror will not have anything dramatic for us to recount to others should we survive it in years to come.
Whilst the NHS staff and others on the front line have been so brave and dedicated, their tales to others will likely never be told to others being hideous but with few ways of showing their bravery other than ‘Hell, I was there’
Weird times for all now, how this history will be written, and remembered is unknown, yet I expect someone will already be making a film out of such, or writing a Christmas record to dedicate proceeds to the NHS etc.
Will be thinking of you today and a big thank you for what you done
You hang on in there Monica you’ve done this country proud