大象传媒

Interviewee : Miss Mary Treadwell Date 22.5.2004
Place: Bridport
Date of Birth Not revealed Age in early 80s

I was called up, and I accepted it; I thought it was a very good idea and would broaden my knowledge of the world. I made inquiries of some office, either in Oxford Street or Regent Street, I can't remember. They said 'Do you want to go in the Land Army?', 'No', 'Do you want to go into the Services?', 'No', 'What about industry?'. That sounded interesting - 'What is there?' well, he said 'There's the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate'. I said 'What's that', naturally. And from there, it sounded good, and when my actual call-up came I had to go to the local Labour Exchange, and they said what do you want to do? And I said I want to go into the A I D and they said what's that? So they sent me down to High Wycombe. After that I had to do some general aircraft training I suppose it was, in London. After the Blitz. ... In 1943 actually. And it was a course that lasted for a month. One had to work jolly hard. But it was interesting. What I was being paid did not cover my digs, which was in a working girls hostel, backing on to Wormwood Scrubbs. I think at the time the Mosely woman was in there. I think she was in Wormwood Scrubbs at the time. Lights (in the hostel) went out at half-past eleven at night. Because if I have attended lectures its always been my custom to rewrite them in the evening after the evening meal. And that's when the lights went out and I had to write them early next morning. But it was a working class hostel and that was an experience that one would never have had had it ot been for the war. And then of course you had to have your bus fare to get down to - I think it was Buckingham Palace Road, in the old Imperial Airways house that we had our lectures. And there was a school or college of cooking nearby where you could have your lunch. But I still had to dip into savings, or whatever my father produced for me in order to make ends meet. We weren't paid enough to cover all that. When I came down here for full board one was paying about thirty five shillings a week. I can't remember what I earned. Just over two pounds a week I should say.

Having learned all about aircraft engines and so on I was then directed to go to Bournemouth. I reported at Bournemouth and they said 'Oh, you're wanted in Bridport in the Materials Section, so I was brought down here. And that was how I came to Bridport. There were seven factories here all working for - I've forgotten what it was called now, because we didn't have any connection with them, we only had to inspect. ... But it consisted of going round the factories and inspecting the cordage and the twines which had been produced to see that they came up to specifications. And as I have said to somebody, I don't really se that we were wanted, because the firms here, most of them family owned firms, even Gundry's probably was family owned. And I remarked to somebody that we were not wanted, because they were so conscientious, that they were producing work which exceeded what was needed. In tensile strength and quality . But what the ultimate end of the lines was I have no idea.

There was a lot of outwork being done too in their own houses. Not for the Air Ministry though, it was the Ministry of Supply. One of the things ... were called pullthroughs. There were a number of people, older people who had either volunteered or been called-up (directed to jobs) and they did a lot of driving round here in order to deliver the hemp to the people in the houses for the outworking. One of the persons who delivered outwork for Gundry's was a lady from one of the big houses. ... She didn't have petrol, so at the weekends she went home, into the country to her country seat, her father's country seat. And probably on Sunday evenings she would drive in in her pony and trap. She stayed in a guest house in West Street -

I had lodgings here during the week, I happened to have family living in Bournemouth, so I went home to Bournemouth (at weekends). So I wasn't very conscious of what was going on in Bridport itself, apart from work.
We didn't have leisure time officially, because we were paid from nine o'clock in the morning till six o'clock at night. We had no typewriter. Letter had to be written! It was Mr Davis, the Inspector in charge, who I think had been at the A I D in the First World War. I think, I don't know. And he was very much an industrialist. And I should imagine he was almost retiring age in order to direct this office here. And there were three women, and I seemed to spend most of my time writing letters for people because we had no typewriter. They had to be written by hand!

Once a friend and I went down to Seatown. There didn't seem to be any reason why I shouldn't walk up the hill. And we found ourselves on the wrong side of barbed wire. We went through it ... and we came to a notice which said 'Danger. Mined Area' So we went through that. It was quite interesting. I mean, what is the perimeter of the British Isles? Everything had to be mined. But, there was nothing to stop us at St Gabriel's. We could walk down to the beach. Barbed wire at either side. We did query why it was that we could get down to the beach there and we were told by the locals that the fishermen used it.

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