• Ref.Number: FB011
• Date: 28.2.07
• Interviewer (I): Rose Smith
• Subject: Work in the factory
• Period: 1942-1945

Mrs L

I do remember yes – I remember the concerts we had.

I

So was there singing or dancing?

Mrs L

yes both.

I

Really

Mrs L

Yes well we had quite a stage in the canteen and sometimes - and there was a band leader and they called him Harry – I can’t remember his last name – well it’s just left me for the moment. Very dark man – he was very good, but he was the band leader and then in the lunch hour we might have a walkout. By this time I got to know, I was friendly with my husband you know, he wasn’t my husband then – I was friendly with him and we used to have a walkout sometimes - go down by the lake because he was working sometimes on the lake actually on the big plane and they looked beautiful – they were all silver and they sort of shone like pale blue. I don’t know whether it was off the water or the sky I don’t know but they were like a huge bird and we’d sit there and sometimes took a packed lunch and we used to sit on a nice day and just sit there gazing out to this big boat or plane – plane

I

Can you remember what he actually did on the planes?

Mrs L

Yes I do – he made the doors and it was a very special job because he had to get them fitted right and he had to line them with a leather strap around the edge and to get this strap right exactly to fit, they wouldn’t get the door to shut completely you know. Yes I remember him doing the doors and I remember the strap that he had to put on them.

I

Goodness and what was your job?

Mrs L

My job - well I worked at first with an elderly man on a guillotine and it was Mr Brett from Ambleside and we got on famously. And he used to cut them on this guillotine and I used to stack them up and help him.

I

Sorry what was he cutting?

Mrs L

Metal. And then I used to go onto a small machine and I used to do them to a certain diameter and make a flange and that was my job doing all these pieces of metal - make them - doing flanges.