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is story was given to Conor Garrett and transcribed by volunteer Wendy Cornett

Working in Mackeys in Belfast

TESS SCOTT

I worked in Mackeys; it was a place where they made shells and bullets. The shop I was in made mostly bullets. I was on a wee machine - ‘Reaming’ I think you called it. On one side worked all the men, about 15 altogether. The other side was something the same of women; we were all working on these machines making the bullets. It was a sort of a lave that we used; there was this wee handle, which took the centre out of the bullet, as far as I can remember. There was an Inspector came around and inspected the bullets. Any that hadn’t been made right were thrown to the one side.

I lived in the Ravenhill Road area at the time. You got a bus into the town; this was a special tram which took you up because it was shift work that I did; the hours were 6-2 and then 2-10. The tram would have brought you back home again. I got the job in Mackeys because of the war — for the war effort. It was all very friendly and there was a girl worked beside me who had been in the Air Force; she had been invalided out. She used to tell me wee stories that had happened when she was in the Air Force. She was sort of mannish and didn’t care what she came off with. I couldn’t repeat it.

Everybody in Mackeys was working really hard; there was no sitting about gossiping or anything, but then you had a break for tea, etc. Everyone I think was quite happy in it. The pay was £2 for a week, which was good money then. You could have come upstairs from the outside of the factory; there were fire escape stairs into it; maybe they had to have that because of the war. It was just a factory but it was quite bright in the room I was in. I must have been about 19 or 20 at the time. I didn’t meet any nice boys or anything; they were all too busy working.

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