大象传媒

I started at Parnalls in the apprentice quarter which was the office block. I used to cycle to work every day, without holding the handlebars - I was very fit! We helped to make aileron hinge brackets and other components. Then six months into my apprenticeship we were bombed.
If the air raid sirens went off you did not evacuate until we got the evacuation signal. This was because we had to keep maximum production going. Otherwise, with all the siren warnings you would not get anything done.

The DAB (delayed action bomb) went off in February 1941, and it killed 63 people, of which 22 were draughtsmen in the main office. We had thought all the bombing had stopped, and we went back, but because we were still 100 yards away from it we escaped.
We rode back to Winterbourne on the top of a petrol tanker that happened to be passing - it would not be allowed today, of course.

As production had to carry on we were moved out to the Dispersal Points - at the increased pay of 14/11d. They paid out people on site because there was no cost office. They only had 拢1 notes so that week we had a raise. We went to Dursley Machine Shop, and a toolroom - aircraft parts were made there.

When they rebuilt parts of the factory I was able to go back and I helped make gun turrets. These gun turrets were used in the large four-engined bombers - Lancasters, Whitneys and the Wellingtons, powered by Draper hydraulic motors. They made the motors at Hydraulic Components, at Wick. I went to Wick for a while, making parts for tools for the production shop.
After that I went to the Drawing Office in Wickwar, where I worked for a year.

The rebuilding of Yate factory was completed in part by 1944, and I went back then to the small toolroom that they had which supplied tools for the erection shop. I was put to work on the accommodation board. This was where the boards were two pieces of metal skin, with retangular struts which held it together and strengthened it. This was the base of the gun turret. When you had made the accommodation board the girls would rivet the skin to the struts.

After the end of VE Day gun turrets were not needed; the girls were made redundant one week, and the men the following week.

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