Brenda Irene Gough was born in 1919 and was the sister of Sheila Mary Gough. The 1939 register records that Brenda was working as a secretary for the Civil Nursing Reserve and living in Wimbledon.
She joined the WAAF after May 1941. At this time women between 20 and 30 years were given the choice between joining the auxilliary services and doing war work (much of it in factories). WAAF’s did not serve as air crew, but supported members of the RAF.
In January 1942 she accompanied Winston Churchill’s party to the Casablanca Conference which planned the allied European strategy for the next stage of the war.
She was one of the first servicewomen to go to sea in one of HM ships since the days of Nelson. Her living quarters would have been in the senior officers’ alleyway, she would have messed in the wardroom and worked ship’s watches.
In 1943, Brenda was promoted to Section Officer in the Administrative and Special Services Branch and later promoted to Flying Officer. During the war women were paid two thirds of the salary of their male counterparts.
Brenda married Thomas Henry Whitley Bower, a solicitor from Stretton, in 1948. It is thought they had no children. Brenda served as a magistrate for 27 years, retiring in 1989. She died in 2001.
Brenda Irene Gough was born in 1919. Her father was Cyril and her mother Winifred (nee Hutchings). She had a brother Philip b1908 and two sisters, Gwendoline b1910 and Sheila Mary b1916.
The family lived in Moore House, Runcorn Road, where Cyril was a poultry farmer. The 1941 farm survey records that he had 2700 chickens and 470 ducks. We understand that he bred them and that the young chickens were sent by local train to other farms to be raised for egg production.
Philip was a book illustrator and around 1950 illustrated an edition of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. Sheila was a nursing sister with Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.
The 1939 register records that Brenda was working as a secretary for the Civil Nursing Reserve and living in Wimbledon. She joined the WAAF after May 1941 and may well have been conscripted. At this time women between 20 and 30 years were given the choice between joining the auxilliary services and doing war work (much of it in factories).
WAAF’s did not serve as air crew, but supported members of the RAF. In 1943, Brenda was promoted to Section Officer in the Administrative and Special Services Branch and later promoted to Flying Officer. During the war women were paid two thirds of the salary of their male counterparts.
Brenda married Thomas Henry Whitley Bower from Stretton in 1948. It is thought they had no children. Brenda died in 2001.