大象传媒

I was a girl of 16 years when I was told that I had to leave my place of work which I enjoyed as a presser in a Burton tailoring factory.

Three choices were given to me:
1) Enrolment into the force;
2) Work as a Land Army Girl; or
3) Take up work on munitions.

I chose munitions as i meant that I could live at home.

We were informed that it was important war work and that we would have to get used to long hours, meaning day and night shifts.

I was trained as a POP RIVETER working on the wings of Lancaster Bombers. Boiler suit was issued to me along wiht a POP GUN and RIVETS. I was instructed to climb onto a platform, which was a few feet from the ground.

Using this heavy gun caused me to have blisters and segs. In time I got used to it and quit enjoyed the work. Inspectors made sure that your mistakes were rectified. Too many errors would mean a loss of your bonus money, se we had to do good work. It was very scary to me at first. I never thought I'd get used to it.

Pay day became a joy to run home with this wage packet to my mother, who cried when she first saw this large white piece of paper which was a five pound note. It meant so much to her.

Black market was on the scene. People running this became known as "spivs". With rationing of food and clothes, if you had the money, you could buy extra coupons from them.

Our transport was trams. The long hours I worked menat that I travelled in the dark a lot, but cutting through dark alleys and back streets to cut the tram fare down, never brought me any dangers.

Until I was married, I never used a hot water tap. We only had cold water taps, so a boiler was used and we would use a steel jug to fill the sink and tin bath on our bath nights.

Outside toilet which meant using a torch to find your way at night. Windows were heavily curtained to shut out any outside lights. Air-raid wardens would patrol the streets. Times could be grim, but in spite of the food rationing, there was always a smell of home-made bread and buns coming from the oven, which was built into the fireplace. I would go with my brothers and fill a bucket with used cinders from a near-by mill. This meant that we could always have a warm fire.

Radio and gramaphone was a great pleasure for me during this time as I was too tired to go out much. I wanted to be sure of a good wage packet to bring home. But I still look back on many happy hours ...

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