At eighteen she was called up for the army where she served on ack-ack guns.
Val said her mother nearly always went to the shops herself when she was young, but sometimes she went for her mam’s messages to Jones the General Dealer on Verne Road. Often, a boy on an old fashioned delivery bike delivered the groceries to her house.
She left school at fourteen to start work at the Tyne Brand factory, where she hated every minute of it. At eighteen she was called up for the army where she served on ack-ack guns. She enjoyed the army and hoped to be sent abroad. She got her wish and was posted to Belgium.