In the summer of 1944 Kathleen Oates - a Wren assigned to the Women's Royal Naval Service during the Second World War - was transferred to the Isle of Man. During her time on the island, she wrote dozens of letters to home which provide a unique commentary on the operations at Ronaldsway and what life was like on the Isle of Man 80 years ago. Her daughter, CHRISTINE SMITH, pores through her mother’s letters as part of a series of columns based on Kathleen Oates’s writing...

Eighty years ago, this week was another peaceful one for Kathleen, partly helped by the bad weather which grounded the planes, thus reducing her workload. She began a letter home from the Control Tower at Ronaldsway, explaining why new security procedures on parcels being sent from the base, had meant that the promised cigarettes for Pops had not been included.

‘Saturday morning [February 24] in the Ops room – and there is no flying so I’ve decided to start my next letter to you. I presume by now you’ll have received my parcel, so I’ll explain why the cigarettes weren’t included. I’d originally made up a parcel with the cigarettes in, then just as I was going out of the camp gates, the policeman on duty stopped me and asked if I’d had the parcel examined in Regulating Office. I was amazed – as previously we’ve been allowed to walk out with any parcels. However, there’s a new rule that all parcels have to be made up under the eye of the Regulating Petty Officer. I went back to the cabin, untied my parcel and took the cigarettes out as I wasn’t certain whether one was allowed to send one’s ration away or not. I then had to let the Petty Officer see my parcel – re-string and affix sealing wax on it again, and have a slip to hand to the policeman as I went through the gates. The ruling comes from the police really and not the Navy. They are supposed to examine all parcels – instead they push the responsibility onto the Wren authorities. If I find I can send cigarettes, I’ll send them on later.’

Her enjoyment of the Isle of Man continued, thanks to the bicycle issued the previous Autumn, which allowed exploration. ‘In the afternoon after the performance with your parcel, I went for a cycle ride along Langness, the small peninsula stretching into the sea with the Lighthouse at the end. I cycled as far as I could, then left my bike and clambered over the rocks as far as I could until the fissures were too deep for me to bother clambering down. I found a sheltered spot out of the wind and sat and read my pocket book of Keats, which I’m really enjoying.’

Organised activities like sewing lessons also helped Kathleen fill her spare time. She enclosed with her March 1 letter, a scrap of material from the dress she was making. ‘I cut my dress out last night and started on one of the sleeves. It cost 4/1d per yard. It isn’t what I wanted, but it was a case of choosing from what there was.’

There was another reason that Kathleen had chosen to try to make her own clothes. ‘I’ve noticed in the papers, comments about clothing becoming more difficult – I’m going to get what I can on chits while I’m in the Wrens.’ Thinking of clothing, she commented to mum Elsie that she was ‘very glad to hear that you’re ordering a new rigout – you’re probably being very wise in getting material while you can. If things are going to be as bad as they imagine, I shall be wearing my Wren uniform after the war!’

In addition to organised classes and solitary reading, Kathleen of course continued to enjoy the social life of the base. Fellow Wren Cynthia marked her birthday by taking eight Wrens out to dinner at the Aero Hotel in Castletown, followed by a trip to the cinema. Kathleen appreciated the generous amounts of sugar, which was rationed, that came with the celebratory dessert: ‘the sweet was apple fritters with plenty of sugar’. Meals at the base were more basic: ‘Spam and chips for supper this evening and we had an orange at lunchtime’. Thus, the occasional outing was savoured!

However, Kathleen really appreciated attempts to decorate Ballasalla camp’s canteen, to the extent that her letter home described it. ‘It’s really lovely – there are huge bowls of double-daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses – also a white flowering shrub and pussy-willows. It’s definitely the nicest canteen I’ve ever been in.’

The family in Leicester had noted Kathleen’s increasing contentment with her Isle of Man posting, and she responded to a comment by Pops that she seemed ‘settled’ there. ‘I suppose I have [settled] in a way, but if I got a draft tomorrow, I shouldn’t grumble. I like change and variety, there are some things I’d miss – but I know that there are lots of things that I’m missing out on, being here! It’s a very restricted existence in some ways – but I’m so lucky in time off and easy working conditions. One thing I have made my mind up about - and that is that I’m going to live by the sea eventually.’ Kathleen was well aware of how good she had it at Ronaldsway: a letter from a schoolfriend, now a Wren in Southampton, told of working over six days every week.

Like many of her peers at this time, she would occasionally try to look forward and think about what she would do after the War. ‘I was in the canteen this morning, trying to decide about teaching. I made two columns, for and against teaching and office work – but I didn’t reach any conclusion!’

Kathleen told her parents that she had written to the kindly Mrs Muir in Liverpool, reluctantly disclosing her address and background, as Mrs Muir clearly hoped that the Oates family would offer hospitality to an A.T.S. (Auxiliary Territorial Service) girl stationed in Leicester, just as the Muirs had to Kathleen in Liverpool. ‘I wrote and said that she must have thought me terrible when I didn’t immediately say that the girl could call, when she was telling me about her being new in Leicester. I said it was my stupid, despicable pride - and explained about the fish and chip shop. If she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t and that’s all there is to it.’

Despite a largely domestic letter home, news of the War did impinge. ‘I heard the news Monday night [February 26] when I was at the dressmaking class about the sixth night of bombing on Berlin. How they must be hating it! – But I guess it helps to bring the end of the war in Europe nearer.’

The hardships of the War closer to home were also reported in Kathleen’s letter home. She wrote with news of the death of an ex Ronaldsway colleague. ‘We heard yesterday that one of the Petty Officers, an air gunner, with whom we used to work, has been killed in a Swordfish [a biplane torpedo bomber]. He was quite the nicest boy (I should say man – he was 28) in the CRR. Jane went out with him. He could have stayed in the CRR but he asked to go back to an Ops squadron. He’d already done two years of overseas operations.’