Now Molly heads for a very active life in the Army!

MOLLY’S LIFE IN THE ARMY

After leaving the air force she joined the army and did basic training at Aldershot. She then did another course of training to become a PT Instructor. She was an acting sergeant in the WAAF, which later became the WRAC’s.
Following her initial training as a Physical Training Instructor, Molly was stationed at Queen Victoria Hospital in Nettley in Southampton. It was a rehabilitation hospital. These are some of things she remembered about her experience: They were given a skeleton to study anatomy, but she couldn’t remember the Latin words for all the bones; Each night, the other soldiers put the skeleton on Molly’s chair with a red heart attached to it. Molly also attended a post-mortem for the first time while she was there; the Coroner told all the students that if they couldn’t cope they should go out and when he had finished, Molly was the only one left standing.

While she was there she went to sea for the first time.

Molly had always been a good swimmer. She was taught by her Mum and Dad, who were themselves good at swimming. They promised her, if she learned to swim and tell the time, they would buy her a new swimming costume and that’s what got her started. Whilst serving as a WRAC, she went swimming in the North Sea and swam one mile every day. She swam for Western Command and won a cup for breaststroke and also for the relay race and the medley race. Her mother kept them in the front room of her house.

She went on a course in Holland and had to sleep on pallias’s which were bags of straw. The girls were all expected to “rough it and not to complain”. But when she found the men had beds she kicked up a fuss.

In 1955 she was in the Royal Tournament, dancing with hoops in a routine called “Step in Music”.

Whilst at the Royal Tournament, she was part of the Guard of Honour for the Queen. When they marched out of the arena, they had to remain in full formation backstage until they were dismissed and at that point, all the waiting soldiers had water pistols and soaked them all with water. The video is of the tournament a year later http://youtu.be/1TT-H2_PXrs.
On another occasion she was an invited guest at the Duke of Connaught’s home which was used as an army training centre in Virginia Water. She and her colleagues were very well looked after when they stayed there and everyone had their own butler to look after them.

Later she moved to Scotland and was the only PT Instructor in Scotland when she moved to Edinburgh Castle. She remembers having to exercise all the army cooks because they had bad feet from standing up all day. They also had some prisoners to train.