Nancy Westwood was working in the Co-operative in Wishaw as a clerkess. As a single woman aged 22, she was called up and went to train as an aircraft fitter in Springburn, Glasgow. This was in 1941.
The men and women being trained were taught basic metal work for nine months. Their first test was to make a 1-inch metal square that fitted into a 1 inch square hole, with a tolerance of 5 thousandths of an inch. When she completed her training she was sent to the Fleet Air Arm's Royal Naval Aircraft Repair Yard at Donibristle in Fife, HMS Merlin.
There, as Nancy's father was an electrician, she was chosen to re-train as an electrical fitter. First she worked as mate to Charlie Nisbet. He had been invalided out of the RAF. After three months Nancy was a qualified electrical fitter and got her own mate, a woman called Maisie Sinclair.
Nancy worked repairing the electrics on Spitfires, Albacores, Walruses, and Swordfishes. They worked inside a big hangar. Sometimes they got a job to do on the flying field outside, then they were given sheepskin jackets.
The men who were trained alongside Nancy got the full wage automatically when they completed their three months. The women were paid less. Nancy and her cohort joined the electrical trade union, and the shop steward argued their case and they got equal pay with the men. The wages were very good compared to the Co-operative, eight pounds a week as against two pounds a week as a clerkess.
Originally they stayed in digs in Fife. Special trains brought many like Nancy every day to work at Donibristle, from Kirkaldy and Edinburgh. Her railway pass calls her an Admiralty Workman. Nancy and her friend Marion Robertson soon went to live in digs in Edinburgh, because it was easier to travel home from there. They got one day off a month.
The first place Marion and Nancy stayed at in Edinburgh, Marion got communist leaflets sent to her, and they were asked to leave. One place they looked at, had a party going on. The furniture was piled with servicemens hats. The bed was covered with greatcoats. Nancy and Marion were horrified and said they would let them know. Nancy was shocked when I asked if they went out to the pubs in Edinburgh. Perhaps women didn't then. They went to the pictures, or the dancing, there were many dance halls and you just went for a couple of hours.
Once, on the bus travelling home to Wishaw, Nancy met an Australian pilot called Teddy McGill. He was visiting relatives in Shotts. They went out together, but then she never heard from him. She supposes he was killed.
Nancy thoroughly enjoyed the war.
Girls weren't allowed to do anything in those days, she says. In fact her mum nearly succeeded in preventing her from leaving home, saying she was needed at home and that Nancy's brother had already been killed by the Japanese. She failed to mention that Nancy's father and two other brothers were all in reserved occupations as electricians and engineers.
However, Nancy succeeded in escaping, and she earned good money at Donibristle. By 1945 she had saved more than £1000. She and her husband John intended to buy a house, but there were no houses to buy after the war. They had to move back in with Nancy's parents, where they had two children. It wasn't till 1952 that they got a council house, and eventually spent Nancy's money on a car.
