By PHILLIPA SPACKMAN
I Only Joined for the Hat is the jaunty title of a new book by octogenarian writer Christian Lamb, who lives in Tywardreath.
Christian is no stranger to publishing. In 2004, also while in her eighties, she published her first book about famous plant collectors and the species and specimens they introduced to the UK.
Her new book is a memoir of life during the Second World War. It begins in 1939, before compulsory call-up, when the 20-year-old felt she had to 'do her bit' for the country.
With a strong naval family background, the Women's Royal Naval Service was the obvious choice, but there was an added advantage in that the Wrens had the most attractive uniform and a stylish bat.
It was only after Christian joined as a lowly rating that she found out that the uniform's crowning glory was for officers only! The first of many surprises, the book is presented with a passion for authenticity in her own recollections and those of the other Wrens whom she contacted as part of her research.
Christian in particular describes the drudgery, deprivation and mayhem of war, in a world where class and snobbery suddenly had no place and girls from all social backgrounds worked alongside each other. From scrubbing floors and squad drill. to coding and catering, the story of her own progression through the service takes on an even greater significance when she becomes engaged and has to track her husband-to-be's destroyer as he battled with German U-boat wolf packs in the Atlantic.
There can be no better testament to the book than the fact that the foreword has been written by Countess Mountbatten of Burma. She writes: "This book gives a real flavour of the amazing variety of work undertaken by Wrens, from routine and mundane to highly responsible and dangerous. "But whether working at a desk, in a canteen, in an engineering yard, with little boats or employed on secret information, the girls always worked with a high sense of duty and of 'doing their bit' to help win that terrible war."
More than 60 years later, Christian's memory of the time "when one just lived for the day" is crystal clear. She explained: "We had parties too and enjoyed ourselves when time allowed, but we took our work very seriously and it came first. "In everything we did we were trying to save a sailor's life, or doing things on land that would allow the men to go to sea."
The book is most impressive in its account of the responsibility that so many women assumed at such an early age, but Christian insists that though. their work might have been challenging, the Wrens were not themselves extraordinary She said: "I have no doubt that if a similar war broke out again women around the country would feel strongly enough to join up too. They, like us, would simply want to help."