´óÏó´«Ã½

I'm Betty Goodchild, and I'm 84.
There was one incident when a plane came down. It had circled Wrexham, on fire, and it came down behind Cefn Park Hall, on the Cefn Road in Wrexham. There was no Queen’s Park there then, it was all farm land. And this plane came down- and of course, as youngsters, we had to go and have a look at what had happened. And there were bits of metal all over the place. I picked this piece of metal up and took it home. And my father made a cross of it, and put it on the shed door. He said ‘Those boys were somebody’s son- even Germans.’ He was tender hearted about it.
I didn’t want to go away from home. You had to go into something or other.. the ATS, the airforce, WRENs, or into a factory, so I had to sit an exam- a little test really- and I was sent to the admin block at the Royal Ordnance Factory, and I did the income tax, national insurance, and national savings.
There were about sixty wages clerks in our office. There were 3 tables of cordite girls, because that was the biggest factory, but if anyone was ill, the pay rolls had to be ready for cash office for Thursday, and you would have to leave your job and go and help them. I also used to do all the records for the new people coming in to the factory. And I can remember the men were all from Gorseinon- I didn’t even know how to spell it in the beginning!- in South Wales. And there were so many Jones’s and their initials- it was very difficult.
During my years at the ROF I used to have to fire watch at least once a week or a fortnight. Well, we had to be on standby and keep looking out in case of any flames coming.. you know, incendiary bombs, used to be dropping towards the end. And we would be there all the night, and supposed to keep awake, but a few of us would perhaps have a nap for an hour, and the other two would keep watch, and then we’d take it in turn.
We worked hard, and we played hard, didn’t we? Because we’d work many a night til 8 o clock and Saturday and Sunday til four- non stop. You didn’t go running out and making your face up during your working hours. You had your hour for lunch and you worked hard, because you had to clock in and out at lunchtime.
But the girls- they were wonderful really. I can remember I had two pairs of dancing shoes, a black pair and a gold pair. I think everybody that took size four feet borrowed those. And they’d come and say ‘Can I borrow your shoes?’ and I’d say ‘Hang on, shout and ask ‘Who’s got Betty’s size four shoes?’ because I never knew who had them! In the end, well, you’d never seen anything like them. Especially the black ones- because they used to put chalk on the dance floor- so you can imagine on black shoes- what it would look like.
It was a marvellous atmosphere for everybody in those days. If you’d got anything, and others hadn’t and needed, you’d lend them anything.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.