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This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from Cleveland CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Ellen Conroy and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs.Conroy fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

TEAPOTS AND BOMBS AT TUTHILL

I was in service in Harrogate when the War broke out. I had to return to Co.Durham to register either to join the forces or for war work so I went to the labour exchange to register. They gave me a green card to go and be interviewed at the munitions factory at Tuthill and I was employed straight away as a mess room attendant. You'd have died if you'd seen the place - making all the tea. There was a great big counter and underneath were all the engines and steam that drove the factory and lots of noise and there were all these teapots - everybody had their own teapot - everybody came - they only had half an hour for their break time and that tea had to be ready. I had to know which teapot belongs to who so I asked them their name and stuck it on their teapot - you've never seen such a muddle. I came home and said to Mam I'll never be able to work there - it's a mixed up place - it's noisy and it's dirty and all the men swear and use bad language all the time. Well it got so they didn't swear when I was around. After a fortnight I got to know everybody's teapot and I was ready when they came - it's surprising how you get to know. There were three hundred women and ninety men. There was three shifts and they all had half an hour break time and you had to be ready We had a great big cistern of boiling water with a top on it and teapot after teapot - lightening it used to be. I got used to it

It was a factory that originally made pit powder for the pits - for the blasting of the coal. That was one site then when the war came they made another site to make smoke bombs and there was a site to make pellets for the bombs and cartridges to put in the top of the bombs and the pellet that made the bombs go off. There were railway lines and two ponies that collected the boxes of bombs when they were full to take them off to the station. The factory was in a quarry - airplanes used to come over but they couldn't find it - it wasn't visible to the air. They tried many a time to bomb it - air raid shelters were blasted right into the rock. They were awful places. When the siren went and you had to go in right under the rock - I was always the last one in and the first one out. There were seats in it - all the girls used to go in and they would sing - it was an awful place - I used to stand in the doorway.

The siren went off one morning just as the people were coming from night shift along the road and this one airplane came across and started to shoot. Everybody dived into the ditch and under the trees - all the girls were screaming they were frightened. They straffed them with bullets. They didn't hit anyone but they were terrified. Then Mr.Nesbitt came along in his butchers van and picked them up.

I started in November in the dark - there were a hundred steps down - I was fumbling and stumbling in the dark and someone took my arm and led me to the mess room. You were tripping over the railway lines all the time - there were no lights in the black out. You could go in the lift - ten at a time - but I didn't like it. They used to crowd into it far more than ten - after the shift everyone wanted to get to the top to clock off - it wasn't safe. There were three shifts - eight hours each - 6.00a.m. to 2.00p.m., 2.00p.m. to 10.00p.m. and l0.00p.m. to 6.00a.m.

The war was fierce and there were losing battles and they had to employ more workers It got to be 300 women and 90 men and they had to have a Welfare Officer. I was asked to be Welfare Officer and given a rise of wages to 拢20 a week - that was a lot of money in them days. There was a Union - you joined it straight away when you started. When we got one and eleven pence an hour for the girls - what an achievement.

The girls worked like slaves - three in a hut to make these smoke bombs. One beside this big machine to fill the bomb with black powder, a girl outside looking through a little hole pressing the press to press that powder down, girls hammering the wedges down to keep the bomb tight - I don't know how they did it. They were marvellous really the workers. All the girls wore a protective overall and a red headscarf - if any hair was left out it went ginger with the powder. It didn't wash out - you had to wait till it grew out The doctor from Easington used to come once a month to examine all the girls that worked in the powder. If their fingernails had gone black they had to come out of the powder and find them another job till it wore off otherwise it got in their blood stream. As soon as it wore off they went back to the powder huts because it was piece work and good money. They'd never had a chance to earn such money - two pound ten shillings a week.

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