shift every week. The journey to the factory was, walk to the train station at Lower Blantyre, get the train to Bishopton and then walk to the factory gate. They’d lay on special trains for the munitions girls, so for the early shift I’d get up at 4.30am for the 5.10am train.
Once you got there you went into a special area to change; I had to wear a white jacket and trousers, a white turban and rubber boots or Wellingtons. You wore those summer and winter in the plant, but you could not leave the plant in your wellies – that was forbidden. In my section, the floors were always damp. And to prevent explosions the plant was not allowed to dry out.
There were lots of other things you were forbidden to take into the building. No metal anywhere, no safety pins, no hairpins, no matches, no ciggies – the tiniest spark could put everyone at risk from explosion. There were men, the ‘danger building men’, whose job it was to carry out spot checks for any dangerous items, going round all the time, double checking on us.
My section was one of a number of buildings on the site. The cordite section was extra dangerous because they wereworking with highly explosive nitro glycerine, so these sections were underground buildings. You could only see them by the huge grass mounds. The women who worked there wore the same uniform as us, but they had to wear felt-soled shoes for safety reasons.
I started out working in a section with 12 other women and a supervisor. We made squares and plugs out of the gun cotton. The gun cotton came to the factory by rail, then it was stored in vats to be mixed with water and other chemicals. It looked just like snowflakes. First it was processed, tested and then drained off. Then it was piped into individual machines where it arrived to be blended, or rather shovelled, from one bin to another and back again until it was ready for use.
Our job was to get it into the squares or plugs before it was pressed into shape. There was no music or radio to listen to while you were working. You had to concentrate completely on what you were doing because you were working processing machines. One of the supervisors showed me how to work the machinery on my first day. I soon got the hang of it.
The gun cotton would be handed to me in a small container; it was a fine powder, not quite the consistency of flour but near enough. I’d put a funnel into the machine and shake the stuff in until it was filled. Then I’d close the lid on the machine, push the handle to press it and the gun cotton would come out in an oblong shape as a block, about two inches deep.
Then these blocks would go into a tray to be carried over to a pressing house where it was weighed and pressed into shape. Some of the blocks would make little round shapesand these too went over to the pressing house. After that, in the drilling room, holes would be put into the blocks and the cores and then they were dipped in acetone, in another section, for protective coating. Then these were dispatched and became part of the detonator assembly for depth charges and other explosive devices.
We were all told we had set targets to achieve on each shift. Whatever the target was, it had to be achieved on that shift. Sometimes the forewoman would come up and ask you to do ‘a bit extra’. You just had to get it done. God help you if you didn’t keep the girl in the pressing house going.
I’ll never forget Annie, the girl in the pressing house; she was a cracking worker, a big girl and an absolute gem. She’d stand there, hands on her hips waiting for us to fill up the trays. ‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING?’ she’d yell at us. At first, I was a bit worried about Annie’s yelling. Then I got it. We all wanted to do our best. She just happened to be an extremely hard worker. In fact, she kept us on our toes.
They really didn’t tell you too much. You didn’t even know where these things that we were making were going. We just knew that
Once you got there you went into a special area to change; I had to wear a white jacket and trousers, a white turban and rubber boots or Wellingtons. You wore those summer and winter in the plant, but you could not leave the plant in your wellies – that was forbidden. In my section, the floors were always damp. And to prevent explosions the plant was not allowed to dry out.
There were lots of other things you were forbidden to take into the building. No metal anywhere, no safety pins, no hairpins, no matches, no ciggies – the tiniest spark could put everyone at risk from explosion. There were men, the ‘danger building men’, whose job it was to carry out spot checks for any dangerous items, going round all the time, double checking on us.
My section was one of a number of buildings on the site. The cordite section was extra dangerous because they wereworking with highly explosive nitro glycerine, so these sections were underground buildings. You could only see them by the huge grass mounds. The women who worked there wore the same uniform as us, but they had to wear felt-soled shoes for safety reasons.
I started out working in a section with 12 other women and a supervisor. We made squares and plugs out of the gun cotton. The gun cotton came to the factory by rail, then it was stored in vats to be mixed with water and other chemicals. It looked just like snowflakes. First it was processed, tested and then drained off. Then it was piped into individual machines where it arrived to be blended, or rather shovelled, from one bin to another and back again until it was ready for use.
Our job was to get it into the squares or plugs before it was pressed into shape. There was no music or radio to listen to while you were working. You had to concentrate completely on what you were doing because you were working processing machines. One of the supervisors showed me how to work the machinery on my first day. I soon got the hang of it.
The gun cotton would be handed to me in a small container; it was a fine powder, not quite the consistency of flour but near enough. I’d put a funnel into the machine and shake the stuff in until it was filled. Then I’d close the lid on the machine, push the handle to press it and the gun cotton would come out in an oblong shape as a block, about two inches deep.
Then these blocks would go into a tray to be carried over to a pressing house where it was weighed and pressed into shape. Some of the blocks would make little round shapesand these too went over to the pressing house. After that, in the drilling room, holes would be put into the blocks and the cores and then they were dipped in acetone, in another section, for protective coating. Then these were dispatched and became part of the detonator assembly for depth charges and other explosive devices.
We were all told we had set targets to achieve on each shift. Whatever the target was, it had to be achieved on that shift. Sometimes the forewoman would come up and ask you to do ‘a bit extra’. You just had to get it done. God help you if you didn’t keep the girl in the pressing house going.
I’ll never forget Annie, the girl in the pressing house; she was a cracking worker, a big girl and an absolute gem. She’d stand there, hands on her hips waiting for us to fill up the trays. ‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING?’ she’d yell at us. At first, I was a bit worried about Annie’s yelling. Then I got it. We all wanted to do our best. She just happened to be an extremely hard worker. In fact, she kept us on our toes.
They really didn’t tell you too much. You didn’t even know where these things that we were making were going. We just knew that
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