It is nearly eight decades since the start of the Second World War, but now an Army veteran has published her memoirs.

Now aged 94, Maud Russell-Smith has spent the past year writing her personal account of her life during the war and afterwards.

In her book, Forget Me Not, the great-grandmother, who lives in Spring Lodge Care Home in Clacton, recollects her time as an Army cook and fleeing Jersey as it was about to become occupied by the Nazis.

Maud was raised in the Channel island by her parents Edwin and Frances Brooks along with her sisters Alice and Ella.

Gazette:

  • Couple - Maud and her first husband James after their wedding in 1943

After leaving school at 14, Maud found a job as a horticulturalist.

She said “A few years down the line, I remember working at a nursery and a plane circling over me.

“I started jumping up and down, waving and blowing kisses to the plane.”

Later that day Maud discovered the plane was circling because Jersey had been declared open for war and became occupied by the Nazi German forces.

The family moved to England and at 17 Maud joined the Women’s Army - a year ahead of the official age.

Maud said: “Before the Army I was a horticulturalist but in those times everyone needed food not flowers.”

Maud began a cookery course and was made a first class cook for the highest rank of British airborne officers.

Gazette:

  • Family - Maud’s mother Frances , Father Edwin and sisters Alice and Ella

As Maud turned 20, she was invited to a Sergeants’ Mess one evening where she met her future husband, Warrant Officer James Rous – but she didn’t think much of him at first.

“He made a date with me but I didn’t keep it,” she recalled.

One evening a few days later Maud was called out of bed on guard duty.

She said: “I was heading to the guard room and someone pulled my arm from behind – it was James.

“I couldn’t believe he was the one who called me down as I wanted to stay in bed having a sleep, however he ended up taking me to the theatre.”

Six weeks later Maud and James took annual leave and got married but when they returned to the Army and their superiors found out the couple were both punished.

Maud says: “We were split apart with the whole of the country between us as I was sent to Plymouth and James was sent to Scotland.”

Maud looked to leave the Army and fell pregnant in 1944 with daughter Margaret.

Gazette:

  • March - Maud (centre) with colleagues in a Royal British Legions parade

Five years later she had her son. Edwin, but in 1960, her beloved husband James died in a motorbike accident. Maud went on to marry three more times and had daughter Linda Cornick.

Maud says: “It’s been an exciting life and even if I dropped down tomorrow I know that somebody has definitely looked after me.”