A young woman's war

When war began I was in my third year of my apprenticeship in hairdressing working as what was termed as an improver.

I lived in Nuneaton about 9 miles from Coventry where all the munitions factories were. We constantly had air raid warnings and could hear the planes passing overhead on their way to Coventry which they bombed extensively.

My father was manager at a public house so we didn’t have an Anderson shelter but used to go down to the passage that led to the cellar.

Some evenings when I came home from work I used to help in the bar which was busy because nearby on a private country estate was a regiment of soldiers. The estate eventually became home to a prisoner of war camp.

Black out rules were very strict, we had to be sure not a chink of light was showing from windows and there were no street lights. I remember one evening walking home after going to the cinema, it was a bright moonlit night, on such nights of course we knew the bombers would be coming and they did. I think that may have been the night of the worst raid on Coventry which devastated the town and ruined the cathedral. Also the road from Coventry to Nuneaton which had tram lines on it as far as Bedworth was hit, putting the tram lines completely out of action never to be reinstated.

There was another night when there was a heavy raid on Nuneaton and parts of our town were completely destroyed and Chilvers Coton church was badly damaged.

After about 12 months of war I was conscripted. My father was adamant that I should not join the forces so the other option was the munitions factory. None of the factories were ever bombed but working there was a hard and monotonous job. I had to get the bus at 6.30am to clock in and start work at 7.30am for one fortnight and then alternate for the next fortnight to the night shift. We had a Saturday off but as far as I remember that was when we changed shifts, we also got just 2 weeks holiday. There was a canteen for meals if you wished but I used to take a sandwich meal and just sit near to where I worked.

My first job at the factory was working on aeroplane engine cylinders, three of us (girls) stood at a bench and there was a row of machines worked by men and a tank of paraffin in which the cylinders were washed then passed to us. We had to clean what was termed as the skirt with sand paper so that it was completely smooth and shiny. I was on this job for quite a long time but then I developed dermatitis which was caused by the paraffin and had to be off work for a lengthy period. When I returned I was put on a small machine which cut a certain hole in pistons and there was a white liquid that ran on to the piston as the machine was working. I don’t know if it was caused by this liquid but eventually my dermatitis returned and I had to go off work again. This was near the end of the war and I was still off when we had V.J. day so I did not have to return to the factory.
After the war the German prisoners did great work helping to restore and rebuild Chilvers Coton church.

Hand written by Nora Gammie, March 2005, typed and entered by her son, John

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