Joan Applin, WW2 Ammunition Worker Lesley Dannatt March 2022
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Joan Applin and Len Harborne in wartime paintings carried in case of disaster (courtesy Lesley Dannatt)
My mother’s maiden name was Joan Applin and she was born on 5 October 1922, the daughter of John and Elsie Applin.
She worked as an inspector of bombs at Box during World War II, where she laboured in underground factories.
She came from Hull, East Yorkshire and moved down south to work in the war effort where she met my father Leonard Francis Harborne (12 August 1923-2000), a carpenter from Birmingham, who was serving in the Dorset Regiment. She was sent from the Government Training Centre, 385 Kirkstall Road, Leeds on the 29 June 1943 to Bristol Aeroplane Co, Hawthorn, Wiltshire.
I do remember her saying that she got on the train from Hull and must have changed at some point. She laughed when the conductor said train to Bristol, Bath and Box, perhaps reminding her of the phrase Hull, Hell and Halifax. She was working at one of the tunnels testing the tailfin of the bombs before they were loaded on war transportation. I have an income tax statement for 1945-46 but the only detail on it is her income and no details of where she worked. It is probable that, as a single woman, she was billeted in one of the hostels at Hawthorn or Westwells (each of which was planned to house a thousand people) on the outskirts of the newly-created Boxfields hamlet.
The headline photographs are of my mum and dad which dad had painted for him in Madrid in September 1945 from photographs of mum that he carried with him while he was serving in World War II.
She returned to Hull after the war where she married Leonard Harborne in 1946. It was lovely to see recollections on your website of the time she spent in Box. I must thank you and your contributors for the work you have done to keep these brave men and women alive in people’s memory as most have now passed on. My mother passed away in 2005.
She worked as an inspector of bombs at Box during World War II, where she laboured in underground factories.
She came from Hull, East Yorkshire and moved down south to work in the war effort where she met my father Leonard Francis Harborne (12 August 1923-2000), a carpenter from Birmingham, who was serving in the Dorset Regiment. She was sent from the Government Training Centre, 385 Kirkstall Road, Leeds on the 29 June 1943 to Bristol Aeroplane Co, Hawthorn, Wiltshire.
I do remember her saying that she got on the train from Hull and must have changed at some point. She laughed when the conductor said train to Bristol, Bath and Box, perhaps reminding her of the phrase Hull, Hell and Halifax. She was working at one of the tunnels testing the tailfin of the bombs before they were loaded on war transportation. I have an income tax statement for 1945-46 but the only detail on it is her income and no details of where she worked. It is probable that, as a single woman, she was billeted in one of the hostels at Hawthorn or Westwells (each of which was planned to house a thousand people) on the outskirts of the newly-created Boxfields hamlet.
The headline photographs are of my mum and dad which dad had painted for him in Madrid in September 1945 from photographs of mum that he carried with him while he was serving in World War II.
She returned to Hull after the war where she married Leonard Harborne in 1946. It was lovely to see recollections on your website of the time she spent in Box. I must thank you and your contributors for the work you have done to keep these brave men and women alive in people’s memory as most have now passed on. My mother passed away in 2005.