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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sue Russell of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ on behalf of Mrs RP Macnab and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

We hear a lot about factory workers in wartime documentaries, but little of transport workers: the bus drivers and conductresses and lorry and van drivers without whom the factories would have had no raw and essential materials to work with. I replaced a van driver for more essential work, which women were starting to do then. I had a 5 and a half day week of 47 hours with one week’s holiday a year and Christmas Day. (Bank Holidays did not exist for industrial workers) and was paid £3 a week, considered quite good in those days!

It was not easy. I had to be out in all weathers, sometimes during air raids if there were no shelters. There were no place or street names or road signs, so I had to find my way on a street map only. Driving in the dark, in winter, was hazardous, as we only had an inch strip of light across our headlights, and in complete darkness. But, there wasn’t much traffic!

My job consisted of delivering metal, over quite a large area of the West Midlands: heavy coils of wire and bundles of metal strips, with some lighter items. It was always worst after air raids and living in Northfield we had a LOT. Even after being up, in shelters most of the night, we were expected to ‘clock on’ on time, or we and a quarter of an hour’s pay deducted, even for 2 minutes!

The worst one I can remember was probably the biggest on Birmingham itself. The warning went at 5.45pm, when I was on the bus going home. After a sleepless night in a neighbours shelter, I had to leave it at 6.30am, to be ready for another full day’s work. There was no electricity, and the gas and water pressure was so low as to be virtually useless. The ‘’all clear’’ didn’t go until 7.15 when I was waiting at the bus stop. 13 hours! Driving that day was a nightmare, with houses demolished and buildings on fire. I was trying to get along a badly lit street, over fire hoses and piles of rubble seeing the dead and injured being carried out to ambulances. Some of the sights were terrible, but the one I remember most, which has been with me all my life. Outside a demolished house was a bare plane tree (it was winter) and on its branches, hanging like leaves were strips of material and a complete pair of small child’s panties - the likes of which, I never saw again, thankfully. Mrs R P Mcnab

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