´óÏó´«Ã½

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Margaret Oakley and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
Two or three girls worked on each shift, the rest were men. I worked in the factory approximately eighteen months, about six of them on cranes. Here I worked on all the cranes in the factory but mainly in the melting shop. We used to unload scrap material from railway wagons and it use d to go straight into the furnace.

I left the factory and went to work for the RAOC, which had taken over the Old Yorkshire Showground at Wheatley. When I applied for the job as crane driver I was given a mobile crane with a 25ft jib, my friend drove a crane with a 10ft jib. We were moving material for the war effort we had to take it off railway wagons and stack it like houses and cover with tarpaulin sheets. It was manned by ex POW’s and they lived in the surrounding area, they were stationed at the wallpaper factory in Trafford Street, Doncaster. There were several places where items were kept, inner tubes on the top floor of the Co-Op, tyres at Parkinson’s toffee works, tyres at the brick works. The headquarters were at the Masseratti’s Ice-cream Factory at Bentley. At ‘off’ times we used to roll the tyres and turn tyres at other depots. When goods were needed for overseas we had to put them into wagons and send them to two depots in the Midlands. We also used to load and unload rear and front axles.

We used to have enormous engines, I was once lowered into a packing case head first to retrieve a screw!

At lunch time we used to go swimming in the canal. For morning break hot cocoa and dripping was made by one of the soldiers it was wonderful.

We used to travel on public transport to get to the wallpaper factory then on lorries. On a Sunday morning whilst working for the army my work mate Mrs Lena Brewster and I used to bike to Trafford Street depot and then go to work at Wheatley with the soldiers. There was a bus strike whilst I was working at the factory and 30-ton lorries used to pick the workers up from Thurnscoe.

In winter we had no cabs on the cranes, so it was very cold, but we still had to carry on with the job regardless of the weather. We wore overalls and soldiers leather jackets. I went on nights and worked the 30-ton crane changing vessels.

We worked 8.00 am to 5.00 pm six days a week and until lunchtime on Saturday. On Saturday’s I would meet my mother and daughter and go to Davy’s for tea and then to the theatre.

Both cranes needed to go to Durham but my mother wouldn’t take responsibility for my daughter so I didn’t go. I worked at Doncaster until my husband got demobbed. Then I went to work at the nylon spinning factory but hated it there. I stayed until I had my second child.

We used to swop and exchange coupons or bought them from large families.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.