After her early career in the forces, Molly moved to Coventry to start her family life with Bill

MOLLY’S LIFE AFTER THE SERVICES

Whilst in the army Molly, a PT instructor, was asked to take a group of girls to a dance. She didn’t know any of the girls nor anyone at the dance. So when they arrived she asked if there were any other PT instructors there.   She was directed to a group of men standing in the corner and she waited until there was a Lady’s Excuse Me dance and then asked one of the instructors to dance. Initially he refused saying he had “two left feet”. But when his colleagues offered to dance with Molly, he quickly changed his mind. When they got on the dance floor, a spotlight followed them all around the floor and Molly only found out afterwards that it was his 21st birthday. That’s how she first met her husband – Bill.

In 1956, Molly married Bill Shortland. The wedding was held at Thomas Cooper Baptist Church in Lincoln.   The Church was subsequently demolished when an unexploded war time bomb was found beneath it. The wedding cost £60, which included the cost of a honeymoon in a caravan at Yarmouth / Lowestoft. While in the caravan, Molly and Bill both bent down at the same time and Molly ended up with a black eye which she had to explain to her mother when she got home.

After they were married, they moved to Coventry where Bill lived. Molly got a job as a dictaphone typist at Armstrong Siddeley and later she moved to BRS but had to leave after six months to have her first child. They now have three children – Janet, Peter and Kenneth and one grandchild, Charlotte.

To start with, they rented a house opposite the Butts Technical College in Coventry. It was 14 shillings a week. They later saved up a £100 deposit to buy a house at 3 John Gray Road in Cheylesmore. It cost around £1300. At the time, Bill was very ill and Molly was given special permission to buy the house because at that time, women were not able to buy houses. In order to pay the mortgage, they took in three lodgers to pay their way.

Holidays were expensive but with the Co-op you could get a chalet at Rhyl for £10 a week. You had to be a member and you had to queue up to book as the holidays were very popular. They travelled from Coventry on a motorbike and sidecar – Bill and Molly on the bike and two children in the sidecar. On holiday they had games like sack races and wheelbarrow races and they also played bingo and went dancing during the week away.

When the children were more grown up, Molly went back to work as a Lollypop Lady. She worked at Manor Park School. One day, while working on Davenport Road, Molly was standing in the middle of the road with her lollypop stick when she saw a wheel rolling down the road with a man chasing behind it. She managed to stop it by swiping it with her lollypop stick.

On the 12th June 2009, Molly was invited to tea in the Coventry Lord Mayor’s Parlour and the Lord Mayor, Jack Harrison, presented Veteran Badges to all the guests who had spent time in the services.

Bill and Molly are now approaching the

60^th wedding anniversary in 2016.

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.

The Netball Team

The Cricket Team

The Table Tennis Team with Molly, as the Coach, standing in the middle

Molly with her Corporal stripes and the crossed swords insignia of the Physical Training Instructors

• 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.

Molly posing on a boat on a beach somewhere in the Baltic.  Now you can see why she was called “Legs 11”!

• 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”.

Molly is in the second row from the front, third along from the right

• 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.

This is a group photograph at the Territorial Army Training Centre at Rhyl, North Wales.  Molly is on the back row in the dark training suit and she was responsible for physical training of around 100 girls

She left the army in 1956 and the final episode tomorrow is all about her family life!

This is the second chapter of Molly’s life story.

 MOLLY’S LIFE IN THE RAF

• At 16 and a half, she joined the RAF – she should have been 17 and a half but her mother helped her fiddle the forms to get in a year early.

This is June with Molly on her right

• She joined Flight Command Squadron 11 and she was called “Legs 11”, perhaps because she always liked to be around the boys.

This is Molly enjoying a “pint” with some friends”

This is Molly playing Monopoly with some Norwegian boys

Good times in the RAF with lots of different challenges and many new friends

• In the early 1950’s she was stationed in Germany.  It was the time of the Berlin Airlift when there was significant tension between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Western World.   The RAF played a major role in providing supplies to Berlin and Molly was stationed in Germany at the time.
• Travelling back home to Lincoln took two days on the train from Germany. Then on to a ferry from the Hook of Holland to Harwich. Then another train from London to Lincoln.
• There were lots of flights from RAF Scampton to Germany. On one occasion to get back to Germany, she charmed her way on to a “A World War 2 Lincoln Cargo Plane” which was a modified Lancaster Bomber, that gave her two extra days leave at home.

• The plane flew from RAF Scampton to Wunstorf Military Airport. Molly had to fly in the cargo hold wearing an oxygen mask and an all in one suit, because there was no heating. There were also no toilets on the plane and on one occasion, when she got to Wunstorf and got off the plane, she was desperate to go to the toilet. She ran into the toilet in the control tower and caused a major ruckus because they thought she might be carrying contraband.
• As a present from one of the air crew, she was given some Chanel No 5 perfume, which she didn’t open until she returned home. She had to get her father to help her open the bottle as it had a seal on it. In doing so, he broke the bottle and spilt the perfume all over himself.
• While in the RAF in 1950/51, Molly went skiing in Winterberg, Germany.  She stayed in a hotel which cost 6 pence a day.  She was taught by a Swedish army ski instructor to ski without sticks.

• Other memories of her RAF days:

One of the many cleaning jobs while in the RAF.  Molly is on the back row far left

Party girls – Molly is sitting on the floor in the middle

Molly sitting on a rock in the summer in Germany where they do wild boar hunting

Larking about

Molly cutting a cake with a friend.  ? 18th Birthday

Molly is in the back row, second from the right with an RAF Hockey Team.  In those days only public schools played hockey.  Later when she moved to Coventry to work for the NHS, Molly went on to play until she was 40 on the pitches on Humber Road

• She finished life in the RAF when she was posted back to Plymouth. After three months she couldn’t settle in civvy street and decided to join the army.

Molly makes a career change in her next role – see tomorrow’s chapter!

Molly regularly attends the Cheylesmore Good Neighbours Group  in Coventry and has agreed to tell us some of her life story as a means of developing a model for a “Book of Life”.

The photographs and stories below are her recollections of life over 84 years. 

The full story will be published on GrumbleSmiles over the Christmas period. 

It makes wonderful reading and any errors in recording it are entirely mine.

MOLLY’S CHILDHOOD

• Molly was born in Manchester on the 22nd December 1931, the daughter of a bricklayer.
• She was adopted and moved to her new family in Lincoln. They lived at 12 Walcot Close, Hartsholme Estate, Lincoln where she was brought up.

• As a girl, she was a Brownie and then a Girl Guide – her auntie was a guide leader.
• She went on to become a Sea Ranger when she was 14 or 15 years old in Lincoln.  They learned all about knots and flags and they went on boats on the river in Lincoln.  They also used to go to Lincoln Cathedral on Remembrance Day and she said “they prayed they could do the collection so that they could get near to the scouts”.

This is Molly on the left with her friend Beryl in their Sea Ranger uniforms. 

Molly says “she was always in uniform”

Molly goes from one uniform to another in tomorrow’s episode!