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Work as a female electrical fitter and a war marriage in Southampton

It was quite an experience being in the war. I was born in 1923 when I was about 16 I was working in a factory. They called me up for war-work; I was courting a sailor at the time. My mother, being who she was, didn’t want me to go to do war work. So she thought, ‘If she is married, she won’t have to go to war work’. It’s rather sad really, but she and the sailor got me to get married to him. I still had to do war work, but wasn’t made to go abroad. I was Mummy’s girl, you see, and did everything I was told. Mum was a bit domineering.

He went abroad and they put me in Percy Hendy’s (Hendy Lennox now), and they were repairing army Lorries. They put me on the Lorries with an electrician and he showed me how to take them off the engines and repair them. I knew all about the components and all the electrical parts of a car I was on this for 5 years and I had my own box of tools. I loved it....I really loved it. None of the men in the garage not one of the men said a swear word but in the factory they were a bit rude. But I loved the work.

Then my husband came home and he was a bit of a bully so I had to leave him even though in those days if you left your husband, you got no help. I had to work in a sweet factory. I managed. Hendy Lennox heard about me and gave me a job in the canteen. In those days if you deserted your husband, you got no maintenance. I met my second husband in Hendy Lennox. We had a marvellous marriage and he was a lovely man.

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