D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Mary Papworth

Mary Papworth, Age 98, Auxiliary Territorial Service

Interviewed 23 January 2024

Signing up for the ATS when she was underage, Mary Papworth wanted to escape her home where she had many siblings and join the war effort.

She became a cook at an army training centre and was there at the time of D-Day. 

She said: "A neighbour of mine who was 18 was called up.

"I was only 15 or 16. I said I will come too and join up because I was fed up at home. So I said I was seventeen and a half and they never queeried it.

"The reason was I was the eldest of ten children and I was fed up being another mother.

"They asked you what you wanted to do. I could have been a driver, a clerk in an office but I chose to be a cook because we didn’t get enough to eat."

Mary Papworth became a cook at an army training centre and was there at the time of D-Day.  Credit: ITV Meridian

"The invasion, yes. Well we were not bothered about what was happening at that age you know. We didn’t want to know how many people had been killed. We kept saying ‘It can’t go on much longer.’

"I mean we were so young we didn’t really know what was happening abroad. In any case it was frightening, really frightening."

She remembers feelings of sadness at the thought that many of the soldiers who passed through would eventually end up killed or wounded overseas.

And also experienced the terror of bombing raids.

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