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My name is May Williams, and I’m 89. I live in Wrexham.
During the war, I went to work in the munitions factory. I had three children, but my mother used to look after them, so that I could go to work. I worked with the gun cotton, in the trucks. We didn’t think it was a dangerous job at the time, we just got on with it.
When I went home after working nights, I’d fall asleep, and my children would say ‘Close your mouth, mum, the smell’s coming.’ The smell of the gun cotton! It wasn’t a very nice smell, it was a chemical smell.
You worked all week. And the weekend might have been your weekend on. Well, that wasn’t so bad. But if you had the weekend off, well, your head would be banging. Everybody was the same. A lot used to pass out. The smell was too much, you know. It was alright when you went every day, but if you stopped going, it was terrible. We worked three shifts. Days, afternoons and nights. There was men and women working there.
Gun cotton looks like cotton wool really.
We saw Montgomery. He came to give a talk in the canteen. He said he was so glad that we were all doing a good job.
My husband was in the army, in the RWF. He was in different places, but he didn’t go very far away.
Some people enjoyed going to the dances, but I didn’t go. I had the children to look after.

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