WATCH: 97-Year-Old Isle Of Wight Woman Remembers VJ Day 75 Years On

Saturday, 15 August 2020 06:00

By Oliver Dyer @olidyer

Surviving the London Blitz, learning how to grapple with a German soldier, and serving in the same regiment as Her Majesty the Queen.

They are just a few of the tales 97-year-old World War Two veteran Felicity Medland has lived to tell.

And Isle of Wight Radio is all ears, 75 years to the day Japan announced its intention to surrender, effectively bringing an end to the conflict.

Felicity’s story

While the majority of the country broke out in mass celebrations back on that day in 1945, there was only one thing on Felicity's mind.

"I think at that time, all we were thinking was getting the chaps back from Burma and the Japanese prison camps. That was the first thing in our mind, Felicity said.

"It was a different sort of anniversary to VE Day which was totally different because that affected us all for so long."

Felicity, who lives in Freshwater, joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a teenager.

In her role as projectionist, she was tasked with educating the troops on the maintenance of army vehicles.

Years before that however, while still a schoolgirl, Felicity lived with her family in Balham, South London.

Felicity in the ATS.

She recalls the terrifying moment her house shook during the London Blitz:

"Suddenly the house seemed to lift up and drop down. And that was when they dropped a bomb at Balham underground. I woke up the next morning and there was a huge crate with a bus in it.

"That was quite an event and of course what it did was completely bring the North Bound underground line to a standstill. That was a dreadful evening because what the bomb did was sever all the sewage pipes which filled the underground up and people use to go down there and camp out."

After turning 18, Felicity joined the ATS (later renamed the Woman's Royal Army Corp or WRAC).

Although incredibly "proud" of her time there, she says it was only an error in her previous job at a factory which landed her the role:

"I suffer from number blindness which is like a dyslexia with numbers. I found myself in the factory in the wages office and I did make a dreadful mistake with the wages and I was told I would have to go to the factory floor as I was pretty useless.

"Rather than going on to the factory floor, I dashed off to join the ATS."

As part of the job, Felicity, whose son is Isle of Wight councillor John Medland, was taught how "to deal with a German" and what to do should she be attacked.

That involved - as her other son Steven happily reminded his mother - learning to "kick them in the testicles!"

Felicity says it was certainly a learning curve, especially at such a young age:

"We were taught armed combat and of course we were all very innocent in those days.

"I asked the other typist I worked with, Miss Gurney, where the testicles were because I didn't know!"

After the war Felicity worked with her father, Harry Edwards, who was a well-known spiritual healer.

She moved to the Isle of Wight from Surrey in 1967, having bought a farm with her husband in Cowes.

She now lives happily in Freshwater, supported by her four boys as well as the WRAC Association - the only charity that specifically supports women who served in the British Army.

LISTEN: Alison Brown, the Vice President of the WRAC Association, spoke to Isle of Wight Radio:

WATCH: 97-Year-Old Isle Of Wight Woman Remembers VJ Day 75 Years On

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