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Well, I went onto munitions in 1942. The war had already been on for three years then, but before going on to munitions I still made the arms. When they didn’t want any more of that I had to go on to munitions. All the factories in Kidderminster were on munitions. (Little did the Germans know!)

You couldn’t see us from the sky — as far as they were concerned Kidderminster was just a big hole. They couldn’t see us. We’d got seven factories on munitions; all the carpet factories were on munitions.

In the one I worked on we made all the little bullets for the 303 rifles. You’d be amazed at the processes that we had to go through to make the little cartridges: They went from little solid brass cups, through three processes. They were made into about three inches long. Then they went through another lot of processes before they came to the one that I worked on. When they came to me I had to put holes in them. The plates then went round and I had to stamp on them what number they were.

After that I had a chance to go on tool-setting: setting the machines up to make them. I did that for three years, it was quite good.

When the war ended I went on to work in the carpet factory.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Edith Morgan and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Edith's stories:

• Many processes
• You just had to do it there and then
• They’re still in the bottom of the pool!

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