Joan Carter’s most memorable war stories centred on her time working in the NAAFI canteens. Her favourite involved her supervisor, who had taken a serious dislike to her, ordering her to shine the floor again despite the fact that Joan had just finished it. Through gritted teeth, Joan repeated the task, buffing the floor to such an extent that when her supervisor reappeared she landed squarely on her bottom. “That’ll teach her!” Joan said with great satisfaction.
Joan was stationed at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport – one of thousands of women who joined the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) during the Second World War. Established in December 1920 by the British government, the NAAFI was dedicated to the welfare and morale of Britain’s armed forces. Closely aligned with military needs, it was designed to expand rapidly during wartime and contract in peace. Its motto was ‘Servitor servientum’ – service to the services.
The NAAFI ran the canteens, tea rooms and social clubs used by servicemen, including those at Fort Brockhurst. A soldier stationed there described the canteen in a letter: “We entered the building and saw a small stage at one end with a moth-eaten snooker table to its left: at the opposite end was a large rectangular serving hatch, whilst in between were a few dozen chairs and tables.”
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It was here that Joan spent her days blacking grates, scrubbing floors, peeling potatoes and serving endless cups of tea. Notwithstanding her spiteful mistress, Joan relished the freedom and camaraderie that came with being a NAAFI girl. Away from the watchful eye of her parents she met potential suitors and new friends and enjoyed a full social life. Joan’s story was typical of so many NAAFI women during the war.
Canteen provision had existed long before the NAAFI, but these tended to be local, improvised and vulnerable to exploitation. Earlier organisations such as the Expeditionary Force Canteens (1915-1917) primarily served troops overseas but as women were not yet permitted in the armed forces, the workforce was entirely male. Occasionally local women volunteered near army camps, usually as part of religious or community organisations, but theatres of war and the canteens that served them were male domains.
In February 1917 women were officially allowed to join the British Armed Forces for the first time, though they were restricted to non-combatant domestic or clerical roles. At the same time an increasing number of civilian women began joining the Navy and Army Canteen Board (NACB). When the NAAFI replaced the NACB in 1920, over 2,600 women already worked in canteen roles.
The Financial Secretary for the War Office at the time, Sir Archibald Williamson, said that while the employment of ex-servicemen was preferred, women were well suited to waitressing roles and had “markedly raised the standards of tone and comfort in the canteens”. From the outset, providing comfort and recreation for servicemen had been central to the NAFFI’s purpose. Canteens tried to soften their institutional appearance with curtains, upholstered chairs, tablecloths, clocks and mirrors, creating the ‘home away from home’ atmosphere that servicemen craved.
NAAFI canteens also prioritised recreation, providing dart boards, wireless sets, ping pong tables and newspapers. Later in 1938 the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) sprang from the NAAFI. Although the soldiers joked that it stood for ‘Every Night Something Awful’ these entertainments were eagerly anticipated and over two million performances took place during the Second World War. The NAAFI not only provided the venues for ENSA performances but also the staff to act as front of house and serve refreshments.
As well as serving food and drink to Britain’s armed forces, the NAAFI sold a wide range of essentials, from razor blades to cigarettes. Scented soap from the NAAFI canteen could be purchased to replace the army-issue soap that was intended to clean bodies, clothes and kit. Also on sale were little luxuries such as sweetheart badges, yo-yos and even hair curlers! With its standardised prices and familiar atmosphere, the NAAFI could always be relied upon – even abroad.
The first NAAFI overseas unit opened in Ireland in 1922. A decade later, bases could be found as far afield as Jamaica and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and by the late 1930s NAAFI canteens were spread across Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Although women made up around half of all NAAFI staff, for the time being overseas bases continued to rely on locally hired personnel and male NAAFI employees.
The evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 created a sense of national emergency. As the campaign intensified, hundreds of new NAAFI recruits were urgently required. In response the NAAFI held a beauty contest! In 1941 British Pathe captured the ‘Miss Naffy Ideal Girl Competition’. Twenty-five finalists were chosen from a pool of 28,000 NAAFI women who were judged on appearance, intelligence, self-confidence, technical knowledge and manners. The winner was Eileen Bishop, a coffee bar assistant from Kent who said she enjoyed her work in the NAAFI as there was “never a dull moment”. After being crowned ‘Miss Naffy’, Eileen toured the south-east in search of new recruits.
During this period NAAFI recruitment adverts appealed directly to women. Images of pretty girls alongside slogans such as ‘She Keeps The Men Cheerful’ and ‘Do Your Bit For The Boys’ could be found in newspapers and labour exchanges up and down the country. The nurturing and tirelessly cheerful ‘NAAFI girl’ in blue became a cultural touchstone.
“Airmen dark, or fair and tall, shy and bold, she knows them all, she sells all the things, this girl in blue, from razor blades to Irish stew!” wrote one serviceman, capturing the respect, affection and dependence inspired by canteen workers. The positive image of the NAAFI woman helped boost recruitment and NAAFI employees increased to 110,000 at their wartime peak.
“So here we are NAAFI Girls!” said Eve Diett in her Diary of a NAAFI Girl. With NAAFI caps perched on their newly permed hair and false eyelashes ready for batting at soldiers, Eve and her friend Marge strutted off to war. But their glamorous aspirations quickly evaporated when they were issued dark blue overalls ‘out of the ark’ that were more akin to a straightjacket. “To wear anything underneath but bra and pants is an impossibility and to bend is drastic!” said Eve. The glamorous recruitment imagery was far removed from the reality of NAAFI life. Marge and Eve slept in Army surplus beds and woke to physically demanding shifts lasting 12-16 hours a day. It was not uncommon for NAAFI girls to work seven days a week. “You served until your feet bled,” said one canteen worker. The emotional strain of ‘morale work’ also took its toll. “You had to smile no matter how tired you were,” said one worker, “the boys needed you to be cheerful.”
On Christmas Eve 1942 the newly formed ATS/EFI (Auxiliary Territorial Service/Expeditionary Force Institutes) began enrolling NAAFI women. Previously considered civilians they now entered the women’s branch of the British Army and could be deployed overseas. Applicants had to be aged between 19 and 43 and were given military training before departure. The earliest contingent left for Algiers in June 1943. Overseas service meant long hours under unpredictable conditions: extreme heat, torrential rain, dust, air raids and rapidly shifting front lines.
“We worked in a tent that collapsed twice in the rain – mud up to our ankles and no dry clothes,” reported a NAAFI worker in Italy. In Tunisia, water was rationed and in Egypt grit and dust from the desert worked its way into everything. In Malta, workers slept in leaking, rat-infested huts with impromptu counters made from planks laid across petrol tins. Canteens were regularly bombed.
NAAFI staff frequently occupied forward positions and faced real danger. In Naples in 1943 they had a meal ready for the advancing troops when they entered the city. As Sir James Spooner observed, “Ununiformed staff stood shoulder to shoulder with their customers in battle against the enemy, occupied adjacent hospital beds, suffered with them in POW camps and shared common burial grounds.” During the course of the war over 500 NAAFI employees lost their lives.
Joan Carter was lucky and survived the war with a happy ending. Like many NAAFI women, she met a soldier in the canteen and married him. While no figures exist, many romances blossomed in the NAAFI and throughout the 1940s it was common to see ‘Met at the NAAFI’ in marriage notices in local newspapers.
The NAAFI has often been overlooked in traditional war histories, perhaps because it occupied an ambiguous space between civilian and military roles and because care-giving and morale-sustaining work is often undervalued. The importance of the NAAFI in the Second World War, however, cannot be overstated. As Sir James Grigg, Secretary of State for War, said: “The work of the NAAFI is indispensable to the efficiency and well-being of the army.”
