Working during the war

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/BBC Radio Nottingham on behalf of Ivy Kenton with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I lived in Basford, we did war work, we had to get there at 7.30am and finish at6pm. We made aircraft engine stands at the Stag Cabinet Company. We did ammunition boxes too. The boxes would go out to the front line then come back to be mended. We would send all sorts of messages with them and we’d get replies back too.
The creosote we had to use was horrible it would get all over your hands and we couldn’t get it off. We wore big overalls which got filthy, my mother called my overall the ‘little beast’
There was no heating at all at work. In the section I was in there was a stove, we’d take out lunch in and put it straight on there to warm up. The foreman would come down and say “it smells like a kitchen in here” but he never stopped us - it was a lovely smell.
When the boxes were done there was a pulley we’d put the finished boxes on to it, it would go along a track up to where the lorries were taking them away. When they came back they were kept in a field nearby.

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