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VN053 Dilys Pritchard, Austin Taylor, Bethesda;Ferranti, Bangor
Dilys worked in Woolworths after leaving school for four years. She moved to Ferranti's, around 1961-1962, where she stayed for six months, before leaving to work at Austin Taylor. Almost straight away, she became one of their 'keyworkers' learning how to treat people and train them on the product. She remembers that one girl got her hair caught in one of the machines once and she had the wit to turn it off.They had to get scissors and cut some of her hair to get it free. After eight years, she became ill with appenicitis and had to leave. The factory told her that if she wanted her job back she'd have to go to a tribunal and, with no union to back her up, she lost her job in 1970.VSE053 Betty Probert, Hoover, Merthyr;OP Chocolate Factory, Merthyr
Betty left school at 16 (1946) and started in O P Chocolates (until 1954) with her twin sister. She was in the packing dept. Also helped in basement with the line, making chocolates or in the boiled sweets section. Heavy work. They also made wafer biscuits. You could eat as much as you wanted. They had broken biscuits in bags. Union supported her when she refused to do the heavy work. Records, talking and singing. Sending notes with chocolates ‘If married, pass us by, if single, please reply.’ Her sister met a man from Holland in this way! Dusting chocolates with feather duster. Factory moved to Dowlais. Lots of the girls moved to Hoover’s. Describes the different jobs she did there on washing machine. Training in London. All girls on assembly. She had an accident and compensation - £60 – before tribunal. Union – her friend was a shop steward. Monthly and Xmas bonuses. She had a washing machine, tumble drier and a cleaner (cheaper) when there. She can still have these today. Equal pay strike – women on big machines. Not aware of the Dagenham strike. Dancing in canteen and table tennis facilities. Sports Day – factories competing . Concerts – mentions singers. Smoking on factory floor. Holidays. Still meet up – cricket club. She left Hoover’s in 1989. Gold watch for 25th + £30; £100 for 35 years. Monthly pension and redundancy pay. ‘Home from ‘home’.VN051 Pat R.D., De Haviland Aircraft Co, Broughton
Pat began in De Havilands straight from school, in 1966, in the mail room, where she delivered post: “We had to go walking all round the factory with mail bags on us, and it was quite a nice little job. We knew every department in the factory.” Later she moved onto general office duties: “I went on to the Gestetner machines and I learnt a lot about printing. It was a job. To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted. As I didn’t have any qualifications for anything.” She ended up in the Repair and Overhaul section: “That was great because all the planes came in to be serviced. The RAF was still there but quite a few came in from Switzerland, to be serviced.” She was often called upon to do other things, such as make up the weight they needed to during an aircraft flight, when she'd take her office work with her. She was there for ten years and then left to have her first child in 1976: “It wasn't like today, you couldn’t carry on after you had them, you had to leave; six months and you had to go.”VSE057 Iris Radley, Currans, Cardiff
Iris worked in the Curran’s Factory as a summer holiday job when she was 16 (1956), although her mother was appalled because her father (who had worked in Curran’s during the war) said that factory girls were very common. The factory was making parts for tanks – heavy industry. She was told to wear an overall and a turban. Rhondda girls wore curlers under their turbans. She had to check the straightness of tank tracks (not skilled). Sitting down but physical job. She describes it. Crude jokes. She got her O Level results (through the Western Mail) when she was there. She had to pack bundles of rods and varnish labels. Story of the blind worker and his dog. Shock of working a week in hand. She wore very heavy duty rubber gloves. She was warned of one man who might harass her. She learned a lot there. Later she went on to finish her A Levels and to a career.VSE006 Sylvia Ann Reardon, AB Metals, Abercynon;Copygraph, Treforest
Sylvia decribes her mother working as a cleaner and taking in evacuees. She took a chapel house – slave labour. Her father was a Communist. Sylvia went to Clarke’s Commercial College, left at 18 (1966), worked for electricity board, on to Copygraph factory Treforest, but hated it and ‘mitched’. Then she went to the biggest employer locally AB Metals – into invoicing section – worked like a dog. Stayed there 1959-1966. Made to feel an important cog in wheel. Twenty AB buses, but had to pay. She made one huge mistake with export documents. They made tuners for TVs and other electronic equipment. Details of job. Some girls had to sign the Official Secrets Act Complicated processes. Vast customer base. 4000 women workers – redundancies. Helped a friend to get a job in the pit. Loyalty to people on your line or in your office. First day at work in overcrowded office and everyone smoking Woodbines. Wonderful place to work – gave her confidence and capability. Complained re. lack of. space but they took the ceiling down instead. No trade union for office staff but she organised secret membership. Men 75% higher wages than women. Union rep. Saving with National Savings. Story about giving fellow-workers dexadrine and amphetamines to help productivity. Later withdrawal symptoms! Segregated canteens – office / assembly. Big social scene: going clubbing; sketches. Unmarried mother taken under their wing. She didn’t mix with the factory floor girls. Factory freed women up. Miss AB. Fabulous Xmas do in Cardiff. Left first time when husband to Huddersfield. Left second time because no pension – into local government.Part of this interview is available as an audio file
VSW042 Alison Rees, Alupac, Blackmill
Alison did her A Levels and went into the library service. She worked in Alupac during the holidays c 1977. She earned c. £100 a week – good money. Unskilled work – machine presses stamping out aluminium dishes – into baskets. She gathered them up and packed them in boxes. Tiny pieces of aluminium went in her hair and clothes – but scratching skin. Had to ask supervisor to go to the toilet. Hierarchy there. She felt she was different – education was important in her family. The other workers wanted a job that fitted round their families. Machines noisy and fast – pressure. If not on machine, tidying etc. The noise of the machine stayed in her head in the night. The experience made her determined not to follow this career path.VN046 Eira Richards, Sewing factory, Denbigh
Eira left school at 14 and, when she was 16, her mother took her down to the sewing factory to see if there was a job there for her. This was around 1950 when Eira was 16. It was a small factory, in a closed down school, and there were about 25 workers. The room was huge and there were rows of about thirty sewing machines there and they were all going. They made clothes – coats, suits, costumes - for John Lewis's in Liverpool, and T. H. Hughes’s in Liverpool. There was enough work to keep them going all the year round, every year. She did everything, the whole garment, from top to bottom, and had to learn how to use the buttonhole machine to put the buttons on. They always hemmed by hand. Eira thought it was fantastic and said her mother was pleased she was working there as she didn’t have any qualifications, like her three brothers and sister had, who'd all gone to the Grammar school. Factories were quite new in those days, she said. She earned two pounds a week at first, and it went up to two pounds fifty after she'd been there a while. Eira stayed there until 1962, when she left at six months, to have her first child.VSW057 Mair Richards, Milk Marketing Board, Pont Llanio Creamery
Mair left school at 15 (1952) and worked on a relative’s farm for three years. Then she had a job in the laboratory in Pont Llanio and within a year was moved to the office. In the laboratory she took samples of milk. The factory made powdered milk. There was a room there for the workers to play table tennis. Office work was better paid. She prepared the wages. There was a strike in the sixties – a dispute about a driver in the Felin-fach factory. The manager was given a car and a house by the Milk Marketing Board. On her wedding day a milk lorry came down her street and rang the horn all the way. She left when she was pregnant in 1967. Since then she’s done several jobs – caring in an old people’s home was her favourite. She learned to type in the Pont Llanio office. It was a happy place to work.