Here are extracts from some of the letters Molly sent to her parents about her application for the job with Daphne March and the skills she had to learn, before boarding the Heather Bell in 1941. Then the letters move to 1942 and the start of the Boatwomen Training Scheme.
By the time of the next letter she had learnt that it is a narrow boat, not a barge:
A letter from the 17th February 1941 opens with:
No further news as to our movements except that the girl has had flu, & the 17th is today & I have not been summoned for the trial run.
Much detail in this letter about the trip with the Sibleys, undated:
January 20th 1942 – Molly is itching to start training her first batch of women for the Boatwomen Training Scheme:
I have got digs in Southall, c/o Mrs. Hunter,
Undated, but probably 24th February 1942, six days before the first training trip:
This next letter is dated Easter Monday, possibly 6th April 1942:
Her second trip started on 15th April 1942. This letter, dated 1st May 1942, was probably from this second trip:
This photograph, courtesy of the Eily Gayford Archive [thanks to Mike Constable] is fairly certainly from the trip described in the letter above. Brigit Macnamara is on the right, on the butty Saltley. Molly Traill is standing next to her, and Rosheen Ormsby [we think] is pictured sitting on motor boat Bainton. Eily Gayford took the photograph. It is, incidentally, the only known photograph of Molly from the war period; there are none in her photo albums.
There follows a long gap in the correspondence to April 1st 1943 when, during a training trip, she is laid up with the measles:
Another long gap to the final letter, 6th December 1943, around the time of her dismissal by Philip Noel Baker, Minister of War Transport. His letter was dated 29th November 1943, so perhaps a little more than a “terrific argument”:
Website by Crispin Partridge – Grandson of Molly Traill.
Molly Traill Archive 