Mary Emily Stevens ....... and a unique collection of wartime pictures

I am looking at a unique collection of wartime photographs which belonged to Mary Emily Stevens.

Mary Emily, November 1940

Along with the pictures, there are her medals, her cap badge and her RAF wings.

In the back garden, August 1940

She was born on October 26th 1918, and on the eve of the Second World War War was employed as a shop assistant selling toys.

Her father gave his occupation as “clerk (Wholesale grocery)" and her mother as “Married Domestic Duties”.

So, pretty much an “ordinary family” getting on with their lives in Birmingham, and like so many other young people, Mary volunteered for the services, and joined the RAF.

And that takes me back to the collection of photographs which record her life from the summer of 1940 through to her sudden and tragic death four years later.

The picture album was recently acquired by my old friend David Harrop who has carefully put together a record of Mary’s career which took her, from “RAF Cottesmore, which was a training base for bomber command, to Bridgnorth RAF hospital as an orderly in 1942 and a year later she moved to RAF Millom where in March 1944 she was mortally wounded in an accident.”

Along with several pictures of Mary there are others of nurses and RAF flight crews.

September 1941

That in itself makes it an interesting collection but more so  because as David says “there are few such collections belonging to members of W.A.A.F, and even fewer which also include a set of medals”.

And it is the medals that have thrown up a little mystery. 

In total there are  three, one which is the 1939-45 Star, along with  the War Medal, but the third sheds new light on her career, because she was also awarded the Italy Star which was issued for those who served in the Italian Campaign from 1943 to 1945.

Mary's medals

There is a lot more research to do, and I doubt we will be able to access her RAF records, so at present David has decided to feature the collection on one of his special Facebook sites.*

Over the next few weeks he intends to post pictures from the collection to honour young Mary Emily.

It maybe that someone remembers the family and can add something more.

Sadly the story of the collection and how it came to be on the market is lost.

Order of Service, 1944

David tells me that it passed through two collectors before it came back on the market earlier this year.

I am pleased that he has decided to make the collection more widely known, which is a good thing, and in doing so Mary Steven's short life will be honoured all over again.

And my extension to all those women who served in the services, the Land Army and a host of other war time organisation.

Which included my mother who was also in the RAF.

Pictures; Mary at home in August 1940, at RAF Cottesmore, November 1940, September 1941, and her war medals, courtesy of David Harrop.

*Mary Emily Stevens, https://www.facebook.com/105299108322389/posts/105321781653455/?sfnsn=scwspmo

April 1941 …….. the show of all the varieties ……….. RAF Cottesmore

I doubt we will ever get to know the identities of these young men and women who performed in a show at RAF Cottesmore in the April of 1941.

Those intervening eighty years will mean that few of them will still be alive, and I suspect any records of the event will be lost.

That said I will trawl the newspaper files for Rutland where the base was located, and just maybe there will be a route through to looking at any of the records of those years.

But for any one with parents or grandparents who served in the armed forces during the last world war, pictures like these will strike a chord, and maybe coax out memories of stories of such shows performed by willing and perhaps less willing members of military bases across Britain and beyond.

Both mother and my uncle served in the RAF, and mum certainly would have taken part, either “front stage” or more likely writing the script, assisting with the costumes, and back clothes.

Not that she ever talked about her war time service, but I know she was based on an RAF station in Lincolnshire, where she began writing and was always “up for a laugh”.

Oddly there is another connection with  RAF Cottesmore, and it is that both bases at one point flew the Handley Page Hampdens, and for as long as I can remember we had a brass replica of a Hampden which mother was given.

And that is pretty much is all we have of her time with Royal Air Force, other than a few photographs, and some of what she wrote in the long dull times, far from home.

Which brings me back to the pictures, which come from a unique wartime collection which belonged to Mary Emily Stevens, who served in the RAF from 1940 till 1944.

Most of the collection consists of a series of photographs taken I guess by Mary, and from these I have selected those from that April show.

I would like to know more, but there isn’t any more as yet to know.

But it is just possible that as the collection is shown on Facebook by David Harrop who now owns the collection someone may have something to add.

David has set up a special page dedicated to the young woman, and over the next few months he will be adding items in honour of this young women.

Location; RAF Cottesmore, April 1941

Pictures; the April show, 1941, courtesy of David Harrop.

* Mary Emily Stevens ....... and a unique collection of wartime pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/mary-emily-stevens-and-unique.html

** *Mary Emily Stevens, https://www.facebook.com/105299108322389/posts/105321781653455/?sfnsn=scwspmo