大象传媒

Starting work in wartime chapter three.

A hard beginning.

At last I was on the main shop floor, having got used to noise and bustle passing through many times working in the wire works, I had an idea what did what. Pa Forrester promptly produced a roll of cardboard template paper and proceeded to find out what my maths were like.
Everything made in metal of any shape or even just flat surface relies on Mathematics down to thousands of an inch. There is no room for guess work especially in wartime with its shortage of metals. You use Geometry Trigonometry and Calculus for the smallest of items. Pa set me away making templates for Cones, Truncated Cones Square to Rounds and Segmented bends. I had to produce a working template that could be applied to metal and when cut pressed and rolled came to shape to his exact measurements.
I sat at home nights working on those templates to be produced next morning for Pa鈥檚 beady eye to peruse. He never raised his voice or was ever critical but pleasing Pa became my life for a while.
This was all in between other work. A spell on the Scarfing bench. The men lined up with large long handled hammers, a plate was laid on a huge iron block and the Plater went along the edge of the plate with a flat fat face whilst we all swung our hammers in turn so it was one continuous noise as we hit the head of the flat face. This was to produce a tapered edge on the plate so you had a shaped overlap for riveting plate seams. If you mis-hit the flat face head the Plater got a severe jolt up his arm, it was not healthy to miss. We lads started with 7 lb hammers but over a period of months could swing a 14 lb hammer with the best of them.
I was also given a small guillotine and bending machine on which I produced shelves for the ships lockers they made by the hundred. It involved putting a sheet of light metal on the guillotine after setting the back stop. You then ran the metal through to the stop and stepped on the pedal. After cutting the plate one way you collected it from the back of the machine reset the stops and cut it the other way, the plate had to be cut in the most economical way and you ended up with a stack of flat plates ready to bend into shelves.
On the bending machine the flat plates were made up by turning the edge on the front bending it over as far as it would go then putting the edge under the heavy plate clamp slamming it down to form a smooth edge on which you would not cut your fingers. Then another four bends were put on the piece of plate and you had a shelf ready for the assemblers.
My wage was still 13/4 per week but piece work had doubled that each week and now I had a piece work price once again.
My wage went up week by week as I invented new ways to set up for cutting and bending the plates until I reached 拢3 a week which was nearly as much as the labourers got.
Loud voice from the Foreman鈥檚 office, in here now Frank. "Uh oh" what now. You are earning too much I am cutting your rate. 鈥渘o way I have the chit saying the price鈥� don鈥檛 cheek me do as you are told 鈥淣o cut the price I will not do the job鈥� right go home without pay for three days . 鈥淥k Thanks for the holiday鈥� and off I went. On the second morning there was a knock on the door and Arthur walked in, Hello Glad, YOU get your overalls on and come with me. Not a word was said in the car but at the works he marched me to the machines and said start work you are on your rate and don鈥檛 argue with the foreman. It turned out the men faced with a shortage of shelves had gone mad they did not want their piece rate cut by shortages. I piled those shelves high and worked myself out of a job for a while living high on the proceeds.
Night school took up two nights and Friday afternoons, we had to also work two half shifts by law but only until seven so that gave me time for my dancing.
There was a tea packing warehouse across the road and a brush factory two streets away they had girls by the dozen so I began to take a real interest. Some of them went dancing and one I fell for, we became holding hands sweethearts for a few weeks and then she was gone. None of the girls would tell me where she had gone but one of the lads working with me who had been in the army wounded and sent out took me aside and told me. She had gone away to have a baby, The Father an airman on leave and gone again and there was me thinking all those pure thoughts. The girls were sent to the country where they had the baby and it was adopted, a cruel system but the way it had to be in those days. I was learning the hard facts of life fast and one was women could not be trusted, well I did have a broken heart at the time, soon cured though.
The men I worked with were a mixture of men unfit for the forces, men sent back because of injury or the need for tradesmen. We had dilutee鈥檚 and a couple of women working on the tools. One of the women was the top gas welder, she welded the seams of the Dan Buoys and they never leaked under test. I was sent into her bay to learn gas welding. She was a very nice lady but quite old to me at sixteen probably in her twenty鈥檚. I was watching her weld a seam one day when one of the lads came in and ran his hands over her body, she never flinched or stopped welding. When the seam was finished she put the torch down and walked out of the bay with me following, straight up to the chap who had done the dirty deed and smashed him in the face with her fist, turning round we went back to the bay and got on with the job. To say I was amazed is an understatement but more so when a couple of days later it happened again, he must have been a masochist I would not have wanted one of those punches.
We gradually ran up to the end of the war in Europe, it was obvious it was finished but nothing was being said. We all waited and on May 7th expected them to say it was over nothing happened then on the 8th Arthur came in and said go home lads for a couple of days there is not a lot getting done. Off us lads went free and full of life to hear Churchill say 鈥淲e can allow ourselves a short period of rejoicing before putting our efforts into fighting the war in the east鈥�. To my shame I had forgotten our lads were still fighting and dying out there and I think most others had too.It did not stop me having a wild celebration with the rest of the people round the Green, another story.
End of chapter.

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