大象传媒

I was born in Barrow-in-Furness, December 1920. I was called up in February 1941 to work in the Barrow steelworks along with other young girls. Work was dangerous, roasting hot and very poorly paid. None of us were happy about the fact that other young girls had been sent to work in the huge shipyard, Vickers-Armstrong, and were getting better wages for cleaner work. Because we all felt we were being exploited, I wrote a letter of protest to the management. When they ignored it, I bolted the canteen door during our teabreak and declared we were on strike. This brought pandemonium to the mill as a huge ingot of steel was about to erupt from the furnace, and there were no girls there to operate the steel rolling process. Immediately the bosses rushed to the canteen door, hammered it and declared that if we returned to work, they would arrange to meet us at the shift end,3pm.The result of the meeting was an award of ten shillings rise in wages for us girls,whilst the men received one pound rise. But they sacked me for writing the letter and instigating the strike. Also they black-listed me at the Labour Exchange so I was unable to apply to them for another job.