Brenda was just 16 now 70 years on she happened yesterday when the war broke out... remembers it as if it had.

BRENDA HORNESS was just a teenager when she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army, yet she remembers it as if it were yesterday.

"I was 16 years old when we heard that war had been declared, and had just returned from church. Within minutes of the announcement, there was a knock at the front door. It was someone from the Air Raid Precaution and he whispered to me: 'Tell your dad there's a yellow warning'." At that time, Brenda - then Brenda Varty - was a shop worker at Trinders, a department store on Loftus High Street, but she had joined the Air Raid Precaution as a first aider. She said: "When the sirens went off you had to rush to the town hall to see any casualties that were brought in."

Aged 19, Brenda signed up to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. "I don't think my parents were surprised, though my mother was open-mouthed when I told her. They knew me and realised that I was the sort of person to do these things. It was a bit of adventure."

Given a choice of roles within the Army, Brenda chose to become a dispatch rider.

Despite having never ridden a motorcycle, she saw the role as adventurous and exciting.

"A lot of the girls were on the Ack-Ack guns, but I thought that role seemed more interesting," said Brenda. "For three and a half years I was a dispatch rider, moving between four service corps companies - Tamworth, Liverpool, Manchester and Penarth."

As a youngster out of her local area, Brenda was left to find her way around by map. "There were no signposts in those days," she said.

And visibility was a challenge too, since headlamps were blacked out, save for a small cross scratched out for the benefit of other road users.

"I had one crash, just a short while in, fractured my skull," said Brenda.

"But in those days, there was no time to be ill! I got back on my feet quickly."

Despite the hardships, Brenda largely looks back on her time in the Army fondly.

"It was quite a fun time really," she said. "There were always lots of jokes and pranks. You had to really to keep spirits up. If you didn't try to enjoy yourself, you'd have wallowed in misery."

One thing that still makes Brenda laugh is remembering how, due to her clothing and job role, many people mistook her for a boy.

She recalled: "I remember we used to take it in turns to go to a bakery, because back then you didn't get enough food. We would buy buns and things for everyone, and one day one of the lads came back saying the girl in the shop had said to him that she 'liked the other lad'.

"It turned out that she thought I was a boy, and she had quite a liking for me!" Brenda kept in touch with a lot of her friends from the war days, and until recently still met with them regularly. "We stayed in contact for years. There aren't many of us left now.

"I know war is horrible but it's an interesting time, you learn a lot.

"And I met my husband, Leslie, during the war, so something good came from it. He was a storeman from Bristol."

Leslie Gordon Horness, who died 30 years ago aged just 52, served two years longer than Brenda, and the pair married soon after. She said: "When he came out, he came to Loftus and we married about two weeks later. He got a job at Skinningrove works and settled in nicely."

The couple went on to have one child, David, now 53, who lives in Loftus and has two children of his own, Lorraine, 28, a teacher, and 26-year-old Michael, a furniture maker.

TODAY is the 70th anniversary of the day Britain declared war with Germany. To mark seven decades since the momentous event, the Evening Gazette has asked its readers to share their memories of the war.

Reporter LINDSEY MUSSETT hears how the war changed the course of one Loftus woman's life

CAPTION(S):

MEMORIES: Brenda, on right, is pictured, far left, with fellow Army girls Nancy and Connie, and above are two front pages from the North Eastern Evening Gazette in 1939 as Britain declared war on Germany ADVENTUROUS : Brenda Horness, as she is today, above, and during wartime, above right. She is pictured on a Matchless 350cc at Drayton Manor, Tamworth, in 1945 on her last posting as a dispatch rider, top right, and on her wedding day with husband Leslie, centre, and family, above far right Main picture by IAN McINTYRE