大象传媒

I started work when I was 14, in 1939, in a corset factory, after 6 months we had to change from corsets to make parachutes, gas mask cases and gun turret covers. Queen mary came to visit us in the factory, she spoke to me, she said I expect you say, oh bother it, when things go wrong' (we had the parachutes all laid out around us). We worked from 8 in the morning to 6 o clock at night. If we had to get up in the night to go down into the air raid shelter, which most nights we did, we were still expected to be on time next day or if we were three minutes late, a quarter of an hour was stopped from our pay. If you earnt a certain amount of money, you paid extra in tax but had it paid back to us after the war in post-war credits. I lived in Orchard Road in Kingswood. We had an air raid shelter in the garden, and one night a bomb dropped at the top of our street and my father was blasted into the shelter, because he was standing outside. There was incendiary bombs dropped in the field opposite because Douglas' factory was in Hanham Rd, off Orchard Rd. All the men, our fathers, rushed over to the fields with water to try and put out the incendiary bombs. We had to use liquid paraffin to make cakes because you couldn't get any fat. Dripping wasn't rationed so you'd go miles to get a quarter of dripping to put on our bread. We couldn't get stockings so we used to buy bottles of leg make up and pencil the seams up the back of our legs to make it look like stockings. You could get light or you could get dark leg make up and you rubbed it on with your hands and your friend or your sister would pencil the seam in. I had a lovely coat made out of a grey blanket because grey blankets weren't rationed. When I got married in 1947 I had to save up my furniture docket to get utility furniture which was really well made because it had to be of government standard (I've still got it and it looks like new now.) My eldest brother went into the army, the younger one was too young, and my sister went into the corset factory like me. I remember the raid on the Odeon cinema, my boyfriend was in the cinema watching a film during the raid. On VE Day I went to the street party on Orchard Road, everybody was dancing in the streets. My boyfriend went into the Navy, I didn't see him for 2 and a half years, he came back in 1946, he was in the Fleet Airarm and he went out into the Pacific. We got engaged while he was away. He went to Iceland first, they were issued with summer clothes but went to Iceland for eight months. then went to the Pacific for the rest of the war. From Iceland he sent lovely pyjamas and shoes, sandals. He took one of my handkerchiefs with him all through the war (I've still got it now). He was also in Ceylon and India. The man in No.1 in Orchard Road got killed, the man in No.6 got killed, there was a Prisoner of War two doors down but he came back. We used to go dancing and dance with other girls, our friends. You weren't afraid to leave your back door open. Many times I've walked home from Bristol to Kingswood during the blackout with no fear at all. We were frightened when we were given the gas masks first because we thought we might all be gassed, my father was in the first World War and he was gassed. We used to make vests out of dusters. I got married in 1947.

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