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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Rebecca Hood of the People'd Wasr Team on behalf of John Florida and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was proud of the fact that we did our bit…. And I think it was appreciated …we sometimes had officers from ships that were in port, coming along and giving talks not only to main office but also to the cordyte and other sections …and say how important it was that we kept the cordyte flowing for the Navy’s use. Cordyte is a propellant it actually propels the shell from the gun to …well, its target.

We had a Dinham entertainments committee and there was a very good voluntary committee, when we put on shows, dramatic society plays, we used to have concerts and things like that and of course we tried to make it as nice a time for the workers families and their children. Every Christmas Dr. Knight, who was in charge, used to go down to the cafeteria, and I have a photo of him in his sleigh..which was drawn in by the men in costume, and the children were all given presents. Which was good, because in wartime you couldn’t get things like you can now…And we used to save them up during the year so that at Christmas they always got a little present of some sort. And then in the summer there was a sports and fete and a lot of the little trains we had for hauling goods would be converted so the children could ride around….and in the paper store (paper of course being the basis of nitro-celulose) we used to make what we called the North Pole …and these great big rolls of paper were put there and the children went through little alleways…and when they got to the centre they were given an ice-cream and taken out through another way.. So as you can see it was very much a life — although we were producing something that the Navy required we also had a social side which was quite strong, and it was not paid for it was all done voluntary. The Admiralty provided the Welfare Centre its true…and in the centre we had a bar of course and chocolate cigarettes, there was hairdressing for the ladies, and the social side was well cared for.

I think the next thing that worried us was the bombing….at night you would see the searchlights and anti aircraft guns. The planes would come over….I always remember sometimes there was a gunboat in the Severn and that used to thunder forth when the German planes came over. We had bombs in this district but not concentrated bombings like you had in Coventry, Cardiff and Swansea, though we did expect it at Caerwent — I mean Lord Haw Haw wasn’t backward in telling us that our turn would come, but it never came.

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