Alice Wylde

Recollections of wartime work in the Fire Service and marrying a Canadian soldier.

Joining the Fire Service

Alice explains why she joined the Fire Service.

Daily duties

Alice recalls her duties in the Fire Service.

Employment in Canada

Alice talks about finding employment in Canada to fund her return to England.

'An exciting life'

Alice talks about her experience of the war.

Alice Wylde on her wedding day in 1943 with her husband Larry Tveten.

Alice Wylde

Born in 1920, Alice Wylde (nee Smith) was twenty years old at the outbreak of the Second World War. Shortly after the start of war she joined the Fire Service and was stationed on Walworth Road, London. Alice recalls being called up for service, 'I was called up and they wanted me to go in the Land Army and I didn't want to dig potatoes so I joined the Fire Service'.

As a member of the Fire Service, Alice was required to work long shifts and it was her duty to know 'where every man was...what they were doing and where they had to go. If they were off or on and if there was a raid and there was a fire...you had to know what appliance to send out to what particular fire...[H]eavy units for big fires and stirrup [pumps] for small fires'.

Alice lost her father in 1940. At the age of forty-eight he had joined the Queen’s Regiment in 1939. He was stationed at Kenley Aerodrome in Purley. Alice recalls how: ‘In the first daylight raid on Sunday morning 1940 he got shot down coming out on his bike [to] come home to Walworth Road for his Sunday lunch'. He passed away three days later in Redhill Hospital. Alice's father had a military funeral at Westmorland Road and was buried in Honor Oak Nunhead Cemetery.

Alice married a Canadian soldier in 1943 and moved to Canada as a war bride with her two young children in 1946. Along with numerous other war brides, Alice travelled across the Atlantic for four days on the Queen Mary arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Life in Canada was in many ways different to life in wartime Britain. Departing the Queen Mary, Alice was met by her in-laws and taken for a meal. 'We got off to have a meal...the steak they gave us was, well, we couldn’t eat it. It was too big. We all had rations here. And it was a great big steak and...we couldn’t eat it all cos our stomachs weren’t used to it'.

After four years in Canada, Alice wanted to return home. 'I wanted to come home so I thought I’m gonna find a job and I’m gonna pay every time I get me wages I’m gonna put it in the travel agent and when I got enough I’m going home'. Alice returned to Britain with her two daughters in the 1950s.