Bio

Edith was only 19 in May 1945, similar age as I am now, when she started her diary and lived in Liverpool. Edith was a ‘doughnut girl’, volunteering for The American Red Cross. Her duties included meeting G.I.s coming secretly into Liverpool by boat, often late at night, in preparation for the Allied invasion of Europe, with coffee and doughnuts! The diary offers a great insight into her teenage life, working in an insurance office in the day and then rushing to the Red Cross Club mobile to perform her volunteering duties in the evening. She shared her duties with her best friend ‘Podge’, who later went on to marry her G.I boyfriend and moved to America. Edith describes meeting soldiers and sailors from all over the USA and wrote many of them, as well as going to regular dances and on dates with the G.Is, many of the soldiers and Airmen could have been on their way to East Anglia and I am very interested in local connections to the American forces .