大象传媒

Agnes Wright nee Hooley was born in 1923. She was one of 7 children. She was a letter press feeder near Victoria in Salford. Then we had to take turns to go on fire service. I went and volunteered for the fire service. We answered the phones. We did this in Pendleton in the fire station. I went three times a week from 7pm until 11pm. We took phone calls and wrote down what was what and then phoned the higher ups to tell them. One day there was three of us on duty and we had a water urn and we put a tea cloth on there to dry but it set on fire! Anyway we got it down and got it out! One day we had an exercise going up and coming down the pole and some of the girls got their hands burnt. I did that job for three years. They wanted me to be a leading fire woman but I couldn鈥檛 do that because of my job, where I did a months nights and a months days. I worked for Metro Vickers Munitions Factory in Trafford Park. They taught me to be an Oxycetaline welder. I enjoyed that because we were all in the same boat. Sometimes the men would come up and ask me to weld something for them. One man wanted me to weld his wife鈥檚 bag but it was no good. I knew it wouldn鈥檛. I was there about 3 years. We had small boxes maybe off the ship and we used to weld them. You had the welding rod in one hand and your stick in the other and you had to weld. You had a helmet and big welding gloves. I was proper proud. We had to work from about 7am to 7pm. The factory was bombed in some parts because there was an aircraft factory adjoining it.

When we got burnt with the torch we used to get burnt sometimes, we used to go down to the Ambulance Room and have it bandaged up. Then you had your gloves to cover it. We used to go out for a drink once a week because we knew each other.

We went on a parade to Peel Park. Smart I was. Everbody watching. I think it was at the end of war. I had a uniform.

We got bombed out at the beginning of the war and we had to be moved. We were living in Hampson St off Oldfield Rd, Salford. We were in the air raid shelter and we didn鈥檛 know until the all clear went. The shelter near our house was bombed and my dad was an air raid warden and his mate was in that shelter and they had to rescue him. They were not hurt but had to be got out. Then they had to move us out of the house. We went to a shelter near Exchange Station and stayed the night and from there we went to Salford Education Committee and had floor beds for the night. We were there only a few days until we were moved to Sorrell Bank off Eccles Old Rd and then to Milton Place off Broad St. There were flats near Salford Royal Hospital and they got bombed by a landmine, I think.

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