'Must be under twenty-one years of age, with quick reactions, good at figures – and female'.
These were the prerequisites for members of the WAAF seeking to work as plotters or Filter Officers in the Filter Room. I had the privilege of serving with this special group This secret section of the RAF’s defence programme in World War Two has never been given the recognition it deserves. Nevertheless, it was one of the greatest aids to protection of Britain and to our air operations of the whole war. The reason few people today have heard about this is the extreme secrecy which the personnel maintained about their work and its importance. Only in recent years have the restrictions been lifted and wartime members of this close group been freed from the silence imposed upon them.
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/o ... d-stories/
Their story is fascinating. They were effectively on the front line because the Germans were well aware of their importance, so the Luftwaffe targeted them. As a result the filter rooms were in fortified bunkers, distributed around the country.
Apparently there were hundreds of applicants for each position. My mother was accepted and relocated to RAF Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, on the site of what is now Edinburgh Airport. She was fortunate in that she got a scholarship to grammar school, which was hard for a poor working class girl to do at the time. That led to the offer of a job as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and then into the WAAF.
Anyway the question is whether any Lemons have mothers (aunts, grandmothers) who were plotters? Given the 21 age limit, the youngest WAAF plotter would now be about 95, so there cannot be many left.