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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Kathleen Lockett from Crawley Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Gladys Lanaway with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

During the war I was living at home in Edmonton, north London. One night, we woke up choking and with our eyes smarting. It was very frightening, because we thought we were being gassed by the Germans. We tried to put on our gas masks, but it was very difficult because we were already quite affected by the gas. My mother opened the windows to try and let in some fresh air, but that just seemed to make it worse. We made our way down to the semi-basement kitchen, which wasn’t affected so badly as it had heavy shutters at the windows. We spent the rest of the night drinking sweet tea to make us feel better. The next day we found out that the gas had come from our own side. Soldiers nearby had been practising with tear gas, perhaps thinking no-one would be affected at night-time. However, the wind changed and blew the gas down our street!

Before the war, I was a dressmaker at Debenhams and Freebody’s, but then made to hand-stitch heated wire gloves for airmen — a very long job. When the raids started I volunteered to work in the local Carter Paterson factory which made the tails for Halifax bombers. My first job involved fixing metal sheets to a jig so they could cut into the shapes they needed. This was a very oily and unpleasant job. But then I was transferred to the assembly part. I prepared the metal by screwing separate parts together, so they could be riveted afterwards. I liked this job better, because it seemed more like my old job of working with patterns and putting different shapes together.

It was quite a change for me to work in a factory. I remember we had concert entertainments in the canteen in Friday lunchtimes. There were lots of women in the factory. Some were volunteers, but others had been sent there from other towns in England. One of my friends had been sent from Horsham and was given lodgings in Edmonton, but she had to share three-in-a-bed!

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