THE NAAFI IN WW2
John Leete
Royal Air Force personnel being served tea and refreshments in the NAAFI canteen at RAF Oakington, Cambridgeshire, in 1941
‘One of the pleasures of working at NAAFI was the camaraderie between the staff and the servicemen and women. We got all the usual jibes, you know, things like the rock cakes were hard enough to use for building airfield runways, or the tea was like gnats’ pee, but it was always good humoured as far as I remember. I think we all knew that being in the same situation at war, we had to make the best of it. Feeding times were an opportunity to relax and forget your worries just for a while.’
Olive Thomas had been based in Kent and served with the NAAFI after being called up for service in 1941. Until then she had lived in East London with her family and had been bombed out three times, each time she remembered saving the family’s beloved piano. ‘Living in Kent after the trials and tribulations of war ravaged London was quite a change. Apart from anything else I met girls from all over the country and from all backgrounds. We had to put our ‘class’ differences to one side and get on with the job. In some respects I would have liked to have joined one of the uniformed services, but I had no choice so for me it was a wrap-around apron and a ‘mop type’ cap and a permanent smile.