大象传媒

Memories of a young girl working in WW2

When war broke out in September 1939, I was fourteen years old and working as a colour finder for twelve shillings a week at Naylor's Carpet Factory in Kidderminster. We changed from weaving carpets to making blankets for the troops at the front as part of the war effort. This only lasted for four months and then I got a job at Clifford Aero in Hoobrook, Kidderminster which was two miles from where I lived in Tomkinson Drive.

My mother could not afford the daily bus fare of two pence each way, so she bought me a new pair of shoes and told me to get on with it. My aunty gave me a gaberdine mac to go to work in that had belonged to a boy cousin and buttoned up on the wrong side. I wore that mac to work every day, even on hot sunny days and my workmates used to tease me by saying "its not going to rain today!", but it was the only coat I had.

At the age of 15, my working hours were from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and I was paid "piecework" machining ferrules and joy stick parts for Spitfire fighters on a capstan lathe. If I worked really hard and made lots of parts one week, the manager would drop the rate per piece and I would finish up with less money the next week. If I had to rework any parts rejected by the inspectors I did not get paid for them.

I was not tall enough to reach the wheel on the capstan lathe without reaching up, even though I stood on wooden duckboards, the smelly suds oil, used to cool the workpiece, ran down my arm and soaked me through on the one side. We had toilets with washbasins down the yard, but they were never cleaned and so I washed my hands in the suds oil each time I finished work. We also had a canteen, but I could not afford to eat there and so on a lunchtime I took my sandwiches which were usually just bread and butter, round to my auntie's house which was nearby and ate them there.

On reaching 16 my working hours were increased to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Monday to Friday and 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturdays. At Christmas we finished work at 1 p.m. on Christmas Eve had Christmas Day off and then returned to work at 8 a.m. on Boxing Day. The only way I could get away early from work was when one lot of work finished and if it was near 6 p.m. there was not enough time for the tool setter to set up the new job for me. Then I would go to the pictures or dancing at the Glyderdrome in Kidderminster.

I could not have a bath every night because we did not have enough soap or often enough coal to heat the water. Most nights, after walking the two miles home from work, I would have my tea, wash, cut my sandwiches ready for the next day and then go to bed.

Halfway through the war we switched from making parts solely for Spitfires, which were made from a light alloy to making parts for Hurricane fighters and Blenheim bombers. Towards the end of the war we made parts for Russian planes and we all played up when we saw the strange names stencilled on the boxes because we thought that they were for the Germans.

The factory where I worked was a converted water-mill and still had the waterwheel on the side and mill stream. Rats would come up inside the factory and we threw iron bars at them to frighten them away. Some of the men managed to kill a very large rat and for a bit of fun, they wrapped it up in a brown paper parcel and gave it to the cook saying it was a present from Mr. Wheeler, the managing director. Needless to say they all got into trouble and she left soon afterwards to be replaced by my future sister in law. Some men and women worked in a part of the factory we called the "woolly hole" where they made the stuffing that went into the pilot's seats, every time we saw them they were covered from head to foot in fluff.

In winter we used to have some really thick fogs, real "peasoupers ", and one night after work, the fog was so thick I decided to take the bus home. However, as I got off the bus at the other end I walked straight into some iron railings and split my nose open, bruising all the front of my face. The next night it was a "peasouper" again and my future husband offered to take me home on the crossbar of his bike. We went well until we went under the railway bridge in Worcester Road and he hit the curb and we both went flying, this time I grazed all the side of my face. I must have looked a picture the next day at work with a split nose and a bruised face with a big graze down the one side.

When I earned more money, I still had to give my mother all my wages and she gave me spending money, but I could now afford to buy tickets costing a shilling a day so that I could eat in the canteen at lunchtimes, the meals were good and one of my favourites was spam pie.

At home the menu was the same every week.
Sunday was always roast beef or lamb with cabbage or sprouts and potatoes.
Monday was always cold beef or lamb with fried up potato and cabbage or sprouts left over from Sunday lunch (bubble and squeak).
Tuesday was always meat and potato pie made with any remaining meat left from the Sunday roast.
Wednesday was always liver and onions (liver was not on ration).
Thursday was always fish and chips (chip shops only opened Thursday and Saturdays).
Friday was always braised steak with onions.
Saturday was always fish and chips.

Leisure

Because I worked until 8 p.m. most evenings and most shops closed at 6 p.m. and there were long queues for everything, I used to use my mother's Persil washing powder to wash my hair and sugar and water to set it. We could not afford stockings to wear when we went out, so we used to pinch building sand from where we worked, mixed it into a paste with water and then rubbed it onto our legs. It was alright until it started raining and then your legs suddenly became very white and your shoes filled up with sand.

If we went to the pictures we had to queue up sometimes for hours, the queue often going completely round the block. If we went to the Central, because they had continuous performances we often had to wait for someone to come out before we could go in.

Every night for a few weeks at the height of the war, we could see the searchlights and hear the bombs going off over Birmingham. We never contemplated that we would ever lose the war. The only times I actually saw enemy action was firstly one night after my four friends and I had been to the "tanner hop" at the Crown at Stourport. This was a big room with dancing to music provided by a piano and drums on a small stage.

They used to call us the RAF girls because we liked dancing with the airmen. We could only afford lemonade and we shared two glasses between all of us and made it last all night. When the dance was over at 10 o'clock, the five of us were walking back along the Stourport Road in Foley Park and in the darkness we heard the sound of an aircraft, we all shouted together "not tonight - we don't want a lift ". This was answered by two huge bangs, the force of which blew us off our feet into a screaming heap. Unknown to us it was a German bomber that dropped two land mines in Wilden Lane. Fortunately for us a passing car driver, a rare thing in those days, stopped and helped us up and then kindly took us all home in his car.

The second occasion was when I was at home on Sutton Farm Estate one Sunday afternoon just after dinner, I was standing outside with some of my brothers and sisters and we heard the sound of an aeroplane. In the distance we could see the dark shape of an aeroplane and as we watched we saw bombs suddenly start falling from it. We all turned on our heels and ran back into the house crouching together in the pantry under the stairs until we thought it was safe to come out. On this occasion the bombs fell on Aggborough.

Love and Marriage

My future husband and I worked at the same factory but he worked two floors above me, we used to see each other occasionally and wave to each other. We got to know each other due to an unfortunate accident. The girl working on the milling machine next to me used to change the workpieces on her machine without stopping it, to save time and make a bit more money. I looked across and saw her hand get caught up in the machine, I screamed and my husband to be, who was passing by knocked the drive-belt off and stopped the machine. Sadly she lost three of her fingers.

I did not go out with him straight away but the first time he took me out was on my 16th birthday and we walked to the Bay Horse pub in Stourport and he bought me a drink, non-alcoholic of course.

Because everything was on ration and in short supply, we had to plan our wedding reception a long time in advance. Neighbours would stop me on my bike, on my way to work and give me things like butter and sugar, anything that they could spare. We got married in August 1944 and some of our neighbours managed to get us four ox tongues to be boiled to make the sandwiches for the reception. The Viaduct and the Crown pubs in Hoobrook let us have some beer and the landlord of the Crown sent us a bottle of sherry for the wedding toast, not much considering we had nearly a hundred guests.

On the morning of our wedding, I was up at 5 a.m. helping to cut the sandwiches and mid-morning I had to ride on my bike to Foley Park to fetch the wedding cake from Smiths Bakery that a workmate had ordered for us. When I got back home we opened the box to find a sponge with jelly sweets stuck on it. It had to do. Because of the war we were not allowed to have the bells rung, so I made sure I had the organ and the choir (I asked for six choir boys but only four turned up). We were lucky because most people had no music at all.

We were only allowed to have one taxi, it had to pick up my husband and the best man and drop them at the church, collect me and my brother from our house and drop us off at the church, then return to our house, pick up the bridesmaids and drop them off at the church also.

As soon as the service was over at St John's church the taxi driver had to ferry us and close family members down to the Melba Photographic Studios in Worcester Street, Kidderminster to have the photographs taken and when this was all done he had to ferry us all back to St John's Institute for the reception. For our honeymoon we went to stay with my sister in law and her husband in Dudley returning a week later to live with my sister in Paternoster Row.

When we heard the war was over, some of the girls I worked with started crying, not because they were pleased that the war was over but because they thought that they would be out of a job.

Joan Brazier (Dockerty)

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