WOMEN from the Wyke Regis Pop-Up Club in Weymouth have shared memories of what D-Day was like in Weymouth and Portland.

SYLVIA Baker, 89, of Weymouth, was in the army working as a telephonist on Portland on D-Day.

She said: “I was 19-years-old and I worked on the gun site outside the Verne prison.

“I was on duty when it all happened. All the gliders came over. There were hundreds of them.

“We didn't have a clue what was happening.”

Sylvia's father Harold Castleton was in the navy as a chief engineer and was in France on D-Day.

A TEENAGER at the time of D-Day, Weymouth resident Nancy Brown remembers having the day off school when the Normandy landings were announced in class.

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She said: “I was at Weymouth Grammar School and there was a very tense atmosphere that day.

“My family had a biggish house and we had servicemen staying with us at the time.

“The one we had staying there went off to fight and promised he would come back to see us and he never did. I always wondered what happened to him.”

Nancy said the D-Day celebrations in Weymouth were muted and the atmosphere in the town was quiet.

BABS Alexander, 94, did her bit for the war effort by working in a munitions factory in Weymouth.

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She said she remembers D-Day in this area as a bittersweet time.

“It was a sad time but it was a lovely time.

“Nearly everybody had lost someone and they were all so young.

“Everybody was united on D-Day. Everyone was treated the same, we made the most of the day but it was sad because there were so many who wouldn't be coming home,” she said.

Babs, of Weymouth, said it is important to give credit to all those who were on the home front for their roles in the lead up to D-Day.

She said: “A lot of people thought that because you didn't have a uniform on you didn't do anything.

“Although there was a war on, people treated you differently because you didn't know if you were going to be alive the next day.”