大象传媒

My name is Christine Wadsworth, I am writing about my Mum whose maiden name was Ida Toft.

Before and in the early part of the war Mum worked alongside her niece Nellie Wood and her best friend Doris Dickinson, at Prentices electronics and engineering works which was situated near Elland Road football ground, Leeds. They made switches and switchgear with the tradename of Prentos which were later used to further the war effort. Every day they travelled from their homes just outside Castleford, into Leeds, then out to the works - a problem in bad weather and during the blackout.

Nellie's brother Bill recalls that one night Nellie and my Mum brought home a lot of material so that they could make their own gym clothes for the gym class that was held once a week at the works. They stayed behind one night a week for the class.

After their works were damaged by enemy action, Mum and Doris were sent down to Leicester on war work where they were billeted with a woman who had a young daughter. Mum recalled that this little girl had the longest hair that she had ever seen and that every evening it was given one hundred brush strokes to keep it smooth and shiny.

Whilst in Leicester Mum and Doris carried out precision work repairing aircraft that had been damaged in action and had then managed to limp home. Often the interior of the aircraft they were repairing bore marks that showed that the pilot and crew had most probably been injured or worse.

Although the war years were tough and Mum and Doris were both relieved when the war ended and peace returned, their friendship, forged even stronger during the war years, lasted to the end of Mum's life.

When Mum married Dad, Roy Hodgetts, in 1946 whilst he was still in the REME, Doris was her bridesmaid. At their wedding she was introduced to Dad's best man, Frank Smith, who later became her husband.

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