240752 Sadie Holligan Munitions Worker ROF Aycliffe I volunteered to go to munitions factory, I enjoyed working there, hard work, we filled 40 lb bombs, I thought the work was was too heavy and I asked to be moved to something lighter. so I went onto the smiths shells, bullets, you had to put them on your hand then put them into the machine. Well, I had more on the floor than in the machine so I said "Oh no I'll go back on the 40 lb bombs".
We filled the bombs with TNT, you had to, put the TNT in and press it down. When it was solid they'd bring a tilly and take them away to have the detonators fitted, they did that in a different part of the factory.
Our skin went yellow and our hair went ginger. You could come home and have a bath but when you went to bed, your sheets and all went pink, my Mam used to keep two sets just for me. People all knew where you worked with your yellow skin and red hair. I used to wonder if it was doing that to your skin what was it doing to inside, but I'm 86 years old and it hasn't hurt me at all.
I used to get a bus to Hartlepool and dash to get a train to Aycliffe a, bus would pick us up to take us from station to the factory. I worked all the war, for the first shift I got up at 4 to start work at 6, it was a 2 hr performance to get to work. I had two relations who lived in Hordon and travelled with us. We used to have a sing song on the train. One day a plane machine gunned the train, everyone on floor, at Easington is a pub with bullet holes in the wall from where it fired at the train.
It was rare we went into the shelters at work, the whole factory was always blacked out at night. One night we wanted to go to abultions, we got in there and it looked different, there were mirrors and everything, then we realised, we were in the mens abulutions! We had a laugh about it.
One time there was an explosion at work on the shift before us, the smell in factory was horrible, 4 people had been killed. We had to work our full shift.
You had to get changed when you arrived at work, take out your hair grips and everything. We
wore an overall and gloves, the smiths shells were rough and would prick your skin. We either wore gloves or wrapped our fingers with elastoplast, else by the time you finshed your shift you'd have no skin left.
We had some good times, we used to swap butter for sugar, tea for sugar, what ever you had left you'd swap for something you needed, exchanging clothing coupons and the like. One day someone said to me "Mrs Jones husbands is killing a pig, would you like pork?" I went to her house, just an ordinary house, I wondered where she kept the pig. She took me in and the bath was full of joints of pork! It was rough but we got through alright.
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