大象传媒

I was born in Nelson, Lancashire and attended St Gregory鈥檚 School there until the age of 14, when I left school as was the custom in those days. Eventually I got a job as a mill hand in the cotton industry until the family moved to Liverpool. This was again on account of my dad鈥檚 work at the British Enka in the Test Department. At this time we were living in Aintree and I started my first job in Hartley鈥檚 jam works. I had another couple of jobs including Woolworth鈥檚 in Walton Vale, until 1939.
When war broke out I was 18 years old and still living in Aintree, working at Vernon Pools at Bootle. I was directed to war work at the Royal Ordinance factory where we were making parts for Sten guns, my machine produced sights for the guns.
We were on shift work, working around the clock, the shifts were: 6.00am till 2.00pm, 2.00pm till 10.00pm, and 10.00pm till 6.00am. I found great difficulty coping with the odd hours which disrupted my sleeping and eating, also my family got use to me asking for the radio to be turned down when I was trying to sleep. On the 10.00pm shift we very often had to take refuge from the air raids in the shelter.
My brother Edward was a ship鈥檚 carpenter in the Merchant Navy and Raymond was in the Army. Thankfully both survived the war and came home safely.

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