Still sassy, Doris Gregory takes the reader back over seventy years to the time when she broke with tradition, first by publicly challenging the University of British Columbia’s discrimination against women, and then by joining the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Her memoir allows us to travel with her across the Atlantic at the height of the U-boat infestation and to take refuge in underground shelters while bombs fall on London. Unlike most memoirs of the war that focus on battles, Gregory shows the everyday mundane activities of office life, working under some less-than-brilliant supervisors. Gregory transforms what could have been a dull soldier’s life into one of small adventures: cycling along traffic-free roads through southern England, the midlands and Scottish lowlands, hopping on the ferry to Ulster, slipping into neutral, forbidden Eire, and looking into the gun barrel of an angry German sentry. Although at times the war weighs heavily upon her, the author’s optimism, enthusiasm and sense of humour permeate this memoir, full of laughter and surprises.

Doris Gregory was born Doris Filmer-Bennett in Vancouver, B.C. She interrupted her studies at the University of British Columbia to join the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. She trained in Victoria and then served for most of the war overseas in London. After the war she undertook extensive studies at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto before opening an independent clinical practice, publicized by her weekly newspaper column, “Life Psycle.” She now lives in Vancouver, where she writes full time.

Doris Gregory's profile page

"A fun and fascinating story of her life during the Second World War" —Monday Magazine