Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

6 Introduction ‘It gradually got that you were free’: Women’s Cricket in the First World War Having been a bystander for most of the Great War, in September 1918 Beatrice MacRae (1897-1992) joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) at the age of 20. ‘I wanted to do something because Kitchener was looking at us from every corner, you know pointing the finger, and I don’t know I got restless… I thought I must do something.’ It was not only Kitchener staring at Beatrice from the walls, shops and newspapers of her home in Buxton, Derbyshire. The town was awash with posters, postcards, orators and motion pictures calling on the citizens of Britain to do their bit for King and Country. The message hit home, stirring her patriotism and sense of national duty, and she hastily enlisted in this newly-established branch of the Royal Navy. Before the war, playing cricket had been an unobtainable longing and little more. Beatricehadnoplace at thewicket, andher summerswere spent firmly behind the boundary rope. Buxton was too small and socially conservative to satisfy her innate sense of curiosity and ambition. The Wrens, on the other hand, promised her exciting new opportunities, a chance to free herself from domestic boredom and the tedium of provincial life. At the very least, war offered her some adventure. It was no surprise, then, when her decision to enlist was met with raised eyebrows and crossed arms. Her strict, pious mother – rooted in an old-fashioned ‘Victorian’ mindset – tried to dissuade her, fearing she would ‘go to the bad’ so far from home and her ever-watchful gaze. Her boyfriend tried to stop her too, as did her employer. Wouldn’t Beatrice would feel lonely, alienated and unimportant in such a large organisation? She would be better off in Buxton, far away from danger and temptation. But their protests fell on death ears: a month later she began her training in London. 1 Beatrice’s two older sisters had taken a more traditional route. One remained at home attending to household duties and the other was a dressmaker. Having never even seen the sea, the Wrens offered Beatrice and other intrepid young women a chance to liberate themselves economically, geographically and mentally. Following a month’s training in London, she was billeted in Portsmouth as a clerk to HMS Victory . Stationed in Britain’s oldest naval base, nearly 40 times larger than Buxton and 200 miles from the security of her family, it was not worry that Beatrice felt but liberty. For the first time in her young life she could live independently; she was not wedded to the fate of her domesticated sisters. Beyond the thrill of seaside pleasures, Portsmouth was teeming with unfamiliar and exotic sights, sounds, tastes and people. Her wartime