Daughters united through the manor (From Bucks Free Press)

Daughters united through the manor

9:45am Friday 7th July 2006 in

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FROM 1937 to 1945 thousands of British service men and women gave their lives for their country during the Second World War, writes Lucy Clapham.

While some fought on the front line, others had more secret roles that ensured allied troops knew everything about enemy movements and tactics.

Two such women who fought the war back home were Millie Mace and Beryl Coppin. Both were stationed at Hughenden Manor in Wycombe as members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, or WAAFs. In the 1940s Hughenden was taken over by the London Air Ministry and used as a secret mapping base. Its code name back then was Hillside, and it was here that Millie and Beryl became life-long friends.

After being called up for National Service in 1940, both arrived in the middle of the night at High Wycombe train station and were transported to their secret workplace in a blacked out van. Only after being on the property for many hours were they finally told of their whereabouts.

The two women developed a strong friendship and kept in touch with each other their whole lives. They both married and had children and in June this year their daughters, Debbie and Lenore, finally met. It all began when Millie's youngest child, Lenore Beaumont, from Huddersfield, was looking through a copy of a National Trust newsletter and noticed an article about the manor. She said: "I flicked through it and I recognized Hughenden Manor from photographs that my mother had shown me. When I saw the secret world of Hughenden Manor, I read through it and thought, Gosh she was part of this'."

So secret were the goings on at Hughenden, that Mille and Beryl were sworn to secrecy for more than 60 years.

But despite the hush hush Millie had taken snaps of everyone she worked with and made a scrapbook.

One of the pictures was of Victor Gregory, a surviving cartography veteran who was also stationed at Hughenden, and prompted Lenore, 59, to get in touch with him. In the meantime, Debbie also contacted Victor, and through him the three were able to arrange a date to meet at Hughenden. Lenore said: "It was a very emotional day and it was part of my mother's life that none of us knew about. It's just been such a joy to meet Victor for a start and reunite with Debbie."

Debbie Somerville, 53, from Southgate, London, said: "Meeting Lenore, it was lovely but also quite sad. You wished both Mums could have been there to tell you more and give you all the gossip. As WAAFs a 19-year-old Millie worked in the library matching up aerial reconnaissance photographs with existing maps of occupied Europe. Beryl typed and copied secret documents that accompanied the maps given to bomber pilots.