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She served with the Royal Army Service Corps in Oxford, which is said to have been spared because Hitler wanted it for his base once he conquered Britain. Now aged 101, Dora has shared her wartime adventures working as an accounts clerk to mark today’s 80th anniversary of the law allowing female conscription in Britain.

She said: “Oxford is where Hitler was going to have his capital if he won the war. Lots of people don’t know that. We knew that. And we had a wonderful time because they weren’t going to bomb there, were they?

“We used to go punting on the river, we went to the theatres. The shops were marvellous. We felt wonderfully safe and had a wonderful time. We were very, very lucky.”

Women were first called up in December 1941. Dora, who grew up on a farm in Capel, Surrey, was working in the village butcher’s when she got her papers the following year.

She said: “I wasn’t very pleased but what could you do about it – you had to go where you were sent.”

She joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and was posted to London to train as a clerk with the RoyalArmy Service Corps. She was moved to Torquay, Cheltenham and Oxford, rising to the rank of sergeant.

When she returned to Capel in 1946, she missed the life so much that she almost re-enlisted: “I do think the ATS improved me. I think I felt I could cope with things.”

Dora has kept in touch with friends by joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps Association, which supports those who served in the ATS and Women’s Royal Army Corps.

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