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[Page 34]
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I found it exceedingly difficult to balance my plate of porridge, my plate with bloater and my cup of tea. After breakfast we gathered from "Daily Orders" that we must muster in the Drill Hall at nine o'clock for a course of drill and it was a strange sight to see elderly women chosen for life's experience going through this duty with a cheerfulness wholly to their credit.
The next order was lectures of an hour twice during the day, visits to the Comissariat Quarter Mistress' Stores, Records Office, etc.
This was the routine for a fortnight, when an examination was held, and having satisfactorily passed my test I was authorised to purchase my uniform, to be ready to go into camp for experience in rationing troops. This took me to Grove Park only a few miles from London taking about half an hour by train. I was accomodated at an hostel with the Superintendant of the Cooking Section. She had under her control 50 women who did duty at the A.S.C. [Army Service Corps] camp nearby.
Head Quarters were a workhouse of most substantial structure and of beautiful design. It is said that the building cost a guinea a brick, and there were some connected with its building who were convicted of dishonest practices so profligately was the money spent. It accommodated 4,000 men each day for meals, so cooking was no sinecure. The women worked in shifts and in turn were there throughout the night for a big motor section came on relays from their nocturnal duties.
The Superintendant had under her charge also a hostel for women who were cooking for an Officers' and Sergeant's mess, and accompanying her by car one morning, our girl Chaffeur had the misfortune to knock over a boy who ran across the road with his head down. She very cleverly swerved to prevent the full force of the impact, but when he lay prone on the road my senses reeled for an instant. On picking him up, we found a nasty gash in the side of his head, but he was not unconscious and was able to tell us where his mother was working. We took