A world adventure

In another resident life story, we catch up with Anne Tracey, who lives in our Bulmer House sheltered housing scheme in South Shields, and find out what she did to satisfy her craving for a world adventure.

Anne was born at the start of the Second World War in 1940 and whilst she has no memories of it, she recalls her mum saying he sister was better than air siren because she could hear them coming over the North Sea.

Although her hometown of South Shields was subject to bombardment, other than her uncle who found bullet holes in his door one day, the rest of the family thankfully came through the conflict unscathed.

After finishing school, Anne went to do shorthand and typing for a local college before joining the WRAF at a base near Manchester where she continued being a typist.

Within just six weeks she had reached the rank of Senior Aircraftwoman and went on to become a Corporal, with one of her jobs taking her to an underground radar station during the Cold War.

“I remember once a plane carrying the Queen was buzzed by two European fighters and I had to stay behind to write a report about it which was carried by officers to London the next day,” she recalls.

“It was a great period of my life and I thought it would help me see the world which I had always wanted but then I made the mistake of getting engaged and by the time I broke this up, I didn’t have the length of service left to do this.”

Anne then went to work in London where she did clerical work for an organisation called the Catholic Housing Aid Society. She also worked for the Society in Newcastle and Birmingham before her wanderlust returned.

This time she did fulfil her ambition of working abroad by working for Esso in Libya and after two years and seeking more foreign adventures, she went to New Zealand.

“The flight to Singapore cost me £197 and I then had to get a ship to New Zealand and it’s fair to say I was not a good sailor,” she says.

“When we arrived, I went to look for a job and found myself working for the Department of Māori and Island Affairs in Auckland.

“My friend Mary from school had been living in San Francisco so she moved to New Zealand as well, but she couldn’t settle. Back then there was late-night shopping on a Friday and everything was then closed on Saturday and Sunday.

“So, we decided to move to Australia to start another adventure in Sydney. Mary is still there to this day!”

After satisfying her need for travel, Anne returned home in the late 1970s and after several redundancies she found herself working at St Gregory’s Church in South Shields, originally as a volunteer but then as paid staff.

Even in retirement, Anne has continued to indulge her love of travel, visiting places such as Paris and Vienna.

One current ‘project’ she is undertaking with her niece is tracking down and visiting the war graves of family members killed in the First World War.

“We found two graves in Lille and in May this year we are heading to Greece to find my father’s brother who is buried there,” she says.

“He had been ready to come home on leave and was on board a ship in the port when he took ill and later died in hospital of dysentery.

“Another family member was in the Navy and his body was put in the Thames Estuary when he died and we have visited the war memorial at Chatham where his name is inscribed so by the time we come back in May we will paid our respects to all four family members, which will be a nice thing to have done.”