大象传媒

During the week before the war I was on holiday in Rhyl with my family, ten of us in all, three adults and the rest were young teenages, family and friends, I was seventeen. We were full of fun and paying no attention to the talk of war which was worrying our parents. We came home on Saturday to have this terrible news confirmed the following day, September 3rd. On that day we four were together, just my parents, my brother who was thirteen and me. We listened to the wireless and it was a solemn atmosphere. Even my lively little brother was quiet.

I was working at that time in the Dunlop offices, then Fort Dunlop which employed two thousand and it was my first job, as I left Erdington Grammar School the previos year. For the next two years our employment continued happily, but gradually the boys were being called up to the services and the lovelly carefree atmosphere we had all enjoyed was changing. Everyone was tense and uncertain as girls were having to take over every postition.

We were asked to do some extra work (voluntarily) in the factory for a few hours on Sundays. Of course most of us agree. I only did two Sunday mornings but they are so vivid even now 65 years later that I never fail to laugh at the memory. It was so chaotic that Im surprised they accepted me a second time. I was part of a team that tested cycle inner tubes. It was track work and continous and only stopped when someone in authority recognised trouble and switched off. A tube would reach a girl who would inflate it and it passed through a tank of water wehre it would reach my section and I took it from the track and deflated it the carried it on to the next girl. The track was fast moving and I found myself surrounded by fat wet tubes all waiting to be slimmed down. I worked like a slave but could only cope with about a quater of my stack and prayed for the bell to ring and put an end to my torture. I almost fell into my home when it was all over and spelt the rest of the day. I did a bit better the second time but I was relieved when I had no further offers, although it was a good feeling to have done even a small thing for the war effort.

When it became obvious that all girls were to be called up, I took a short six months "reserve occupation" at Bill Switchgoal works in Perry Barr before finally accepting the inevitable when my papers for interview arrived. I learned from the news that it would be factory machine operating or the forces. I dreaded the former and was urged to avoid the forces by a boyfriend who was himself reserved so I was in a dilema. I persuaded the interviewer that I could be more useful, having a decent School Certificate result (although that was four years previously) but it was a slim chance. I was sent to the Civil service offices in Colmore Row. They accepted me for the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate, a grand title always refered to simply as A.I.D.

I was sent to Bristol for training. I cant remember the exact title but it was a College for turning us into inspection workers on Aircraft. I was quite exited when I arrived and they introduced us to the "workplace" and my digs where I lived for the next month. I and two other girls from Wales and London stayed together in Clifton near "The Bridge" and Downs a very pleasant area and trained together at college.

I was astonished then and even more so now, when I think back to that time, at the exhausting intensity of that time, Ive never seen anyone do so much cramming. No modern day youngsters would tolerate it. We worked hard all day at college, then came home to do three hours each night. At the end of one month we took our exam for Ass. Examiner and by good luck (and hard work) I passed.

I returned home to be transfered to Coventry to work at British Thomson Houston - BTH - for the next three months. It was an exhausting timee. I had to leave home very early to catch the 7.30 train to Coventry and the factory was a bike ride from the station. Obviously I was late everymorning for the 8am start. We left the factory at 5.30 one week and 6.30 the next week alternatively and as it was winter I never saw daylight. On the 6.30 week I was never home before 9.00pm.

It was a large office, about 25 of us, al assisstant examiners or higher grades and we were there (mainly) to inspect 10% of the WORKS inspectors. Those men, some of then with 30 years behind them, hated these blue coated intruders, though secretly they laughed at us. Although they had some reaon to sneer, sadly for them we did, often find faults and it always, had to be reported. We were working on magnets, carboretters and starter motors and when I found a fault my immediate reaction was embarassment knowing that it could never be ignored. The thought of any airmman crashing to earth haunted my days. We were all the same.

We worked singly and when we appeard on the shop floor, I a small slender girl, glaringly obvious on my Recketts blue overall with A.I.D emblazoned on my heart, the whole big department sprand to life banding on their tables to announce my arrival. How I walked to my designated area I dont know. But I had to. Agony!

Actually after a time I gained their support (even affection or admiration, I think, because they admired our guts) and I became to find the banging had become a welcome. They often helped me to put my cylindrical stamp (AID 641) successfully on as the damn thing rolled about.

The only friend I made was a Jewish girl named Zena. We travelled together from Birmingham and on our late nights I dozed on her shoulder because she was a big girrl and comforting (thats when we could get a seat). Often we stood all the way when crowded.

There was a second period at Bristol to try for full Examiner Grade, when the work was harder. I became a smoker and fooled myself that it helped my nerves. During that month we had 3 musicians from the Ivy Benson Band in digs opposite ours and although we loved their music noise we had no time to dance and had to do our own work in our bedroom at the back. We enjoyed weekends when we went to Clifton Zoo and the Downs . Exams at the end of the month allowed two of us to go home as Examiners. One had been enjoying boys company.

Back I went to B.T.H but soon I became a nervous wreck with work/travelling and home problems and often 3 weeks off work. I was transferred to Morris Pressings factory at Castle Bromwich. They produced Aircraft cowlings and Aerofoils etc. Big works, so totally different type of inspection with much walking round every section of the factory from delivery to despatch. Only three girls and two men (in dark suits, one we hardly saw). I was much happier and we three girls became friends. I was also living nearer to work, so the whole thing became easier.

When war in Europe ended in 1945 we females were very quickly made redundant as men returned to their jobs, it had been a period of my life which, viewed from my now great age, seems quite unbelievable. But I have all my books to prove it. There are many amazing or frightening episodes of that time, but now I suppose my adventures are tame beside some of the terrors of my peers. Mine were really only "a bit different"

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