大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People`s War site by Alan Magson of Age Concern Bradford and District, on behalf of Bessie Coleman, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site`s terms and conditions.

My husband and I had a wartime wedding.
We were all on rations. Our neighbours all gave us some of their rations to enable us to have a little party.
There were only black and white films available.All films were requestioned by the War Office, for the use of the Air Force.
A niece had just two 鈥� shots 鈥� left in her camera, so we had our wedding photographs taken standing against the wall of her house !
I remember the first bombs falling in Tyersal, Bradford.
The bomb landed in the field at the bottom of the garden. This blew off the top of the 鈥� Anderson鈥� shelter in which I was sheltering along with my 鈥渋n-laws鈥�. It was lucky that no one was hurt. We were a bit frightened though.

I was directed by the Government to undertake war work, At Crofts Engineers, Bradford. I was operating an overhead crane, making parts of bombs until 1943 when my daughter was born.
One week I began work at 6.00am and finished at 2.00pm, and the following week I worked 2:00pm until 10pm.
I had to climb three flights of steps then walk the width of the factory to get into my crane. We had two cranes. The other crane was always operated by a man, because he did the casting.
One day he didn't arrive so I had to get into his crane and do the castings, which was a very dangerous job. It consisted of holding a big vat of red hot metal still, so that all the bomb cases could be filled. It was held still by six men - three each side. It was really dangerous for the six men holding it still. If I had not been able to keep it in that position, and very still, all the six men would have been burnt to death. I was really glad when the job had been completed. My clothes were wet through by the time it was finished - the heat was really intense. I was very pleased when another girl had to finish the job on the afternoon casting.
It was so noisy in the factory that we could only lip-read. On one occasion I had three or four men needing things moved at the same time, so I took the first man I had seen with his hand up. One of the other men shouted at me to "get that so and so crane over here", using the "f" word in the process. I was so angry with him, I just gave him a little tap (or so I thought) with the chains. The next minute he was on the floor and other men had called for an ambulance. I went down to see if he was alright, but he was out cold! As someone had actually called an ambulance, I was told that the man concerned was alright and was told to go back upstairs to my crane.
He was off work for one week. When he returned to work, he was shaking his fist at me and using his fingers to convey to me what he would like to do to me. I looked down at him and said "you use that "f' word again when talking to me, I'll give you another knock". Anyway, it was all forgotten the next day.
I continued to do this very dangerous job until I got married and was very happy when I eventually became pregnant and received my beautiful daughter.

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