Z1205/143

Female. Laboratory technician at London Brick Co. b. 07.06.1933 Side A (00 mins)Born in St. Helens, Lancashire. During the depression, her Father, an electrical engineer, came down to Bedford to work at Igranic Electrical Co and left her and her Mother in Liverpool, visiting twice a month. They then moved down to live at Elstow. Family background in Lancashire and Cumbria. One younger sister. The problem of understanding regional accents when moving to other parts of the country. (05 mins)Father and Mother met when he was 18 but they didn't marry for 10 years because he was helping his mother financially to bring up her other children, after being widowed. Fog in industrial north-west. (10 mins)Her first baby died. Reflects on the hardship of life in working-class Lancashire in 1930s. Large families. (15 mins)Local midwives. Co-operative stores. Fish and chip shops. Pilkington glass manufacturer; Beecham pills factory: local industries in Lancashire. (20 mins)Outbreak of Second World War (Sept. 1939). Cars rarely seen. Father had set up one of the first radio aerials in St. Helens to receive 2LO (early version of BBC broadcasting). He knew both Morphy and Richards (of electric irons fame) and Roberts of Roberts Radio. (25 mins)Zagatelli's ice cream shop in Elstow Road, Bedford. Family moved to Goldington in 1939. Father had a car. Swimming in the river. (30 mins)Swimming trips to Long Havens, Pavenham. (32 mins)End of Side A SIDE B (00 mins)Mother very artistic and painted watercolours. Had to help mother look after 8 children so was unable to attend art college, when she left school at 12. Painted ceramics as a hobby. Designed and sewed soft furnishings for home and family. (05 mins)Bedford seemed a very smart town after St. Helens. Coffee at the Cadena, Danish pastries at Barbara's bun shop, or afternoon tea at the Dujohn café, over Dudeney and Johnson's grocer's shop in Bedford High St. (10 mins)Family home - suburban, semi-detached suburban home - was newly-built 1939. Family had a Jewish boy from London staying as an evacuee during the war. Visits by extended family. (15 mins)Attended Dame Alice Girls School (then called Central School?). Father paid the fees but she later was exempted because of her attainments in exams. She was 18 months ahead of her peers, completing School Certificate at 14 and Higher School certificate at 14 (equivalent of "a" Levels). Too young to go to university. Studied same subjects for new "A" Level examinations. (20 mins)Taught Latin privately in case she wanted to apply for Cambridge University. Visited Newnham College, Cambridge but didn't like it. Was offered a place at the London School of Economics. (25 mins)London and boys was far more attractive than a female college outside the centre of Cambridge. No longer needed to study Latin. Post-war London was safe. Endless opportunities to visit interesting places such as debates in the Houses of Parliament and the Law Courts and Wimbledon for the tennis finals. (30 mins)She read Economics and specialised in the third year in Geography. Only 2 ½% of students at LSE were girls. The rest were men from all over the world. Most of her friends are from college days. (32 mins)End of Side B CONTINUED ON CS143C2 SIDE A (00mins)No great ambition after university (post-war). Expected to marry aged about 25 years. Got office work with Staff College of Coal Board in London. First realised that women were not treated equally with men in the workplace. She got 5/8th. the salary of a male colleague doing same job. Married aged 23. Came to live in Bedfordshire where husband's job was. She just had "infill" jobs then. (05 mins)Looking back to war years (1939-45) . She was at Dame Alice School for Girls in Bedford, from age 7. It was also a blood transfusion centre during the war. Prior to that, at the start of the war, when an air raid took place in daylight, if you were walking to school you were told to knock on the first door of the first house you came to, for shelter. Carried a gas mask, aged 6 upwards. War time picking of hedgerow fruit by children - hips, haws, blackberries. (10 mins)Experience of German prisoners of war in Clapham area. American servicemen looked "as if they had come from outer space" because of their clothes. Wartimes dances in Goldington. Introduction to dancing. (15 mins)Middle-aged men, not called up to fight attended the dances. Roller skating on the main roads. Collected autographs and addresses form allied troops - Polish, American, French, Czechs, and Poles. (20 mins)Saw the film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at a Bedford cinema and Shirley Temple s "Heidi". Gene Autrey was the popular cowboy film star. Saturday morning cinema for children. Taken to see films by young "aunties", fiancés of her younger brothers, away at war. Learning about war news through visiting the cinema. (25 mins)British Gaumont News and Pathe Gazette news (no television, then). Husband worked for the Electric Research Association but on wind power research in a unit at Cranfield aerodrome. It got sidelined by nuclear energy research. Married in 1956. She worked in the Stewartby brick works attached to the geology section. (32 mins) SIDE B (00 mins)London Brick Company bought up local farms and owned a great deal of land. Bricks needed by the million to rebuild Britain after the war. Survey drillings of potential clay fields. "Oxford clay" stratum models. (05 mins)Dragline extraction of clay from knotholes (pits). Women in the labs. (10 mins)Research and development building at the brick works. Stayed there 3 years. Debate about sulphur emissions from brickworks. (15 mins)Sensors recorded what the fallout was from the chimneys. Later demand for better bricks. Decline of local brick making. (20 mins)Had 3 children. Lace making in Cranfield - cottage industry, old ladies supplying it to Braggins in Bedford. Making children's clothes to save money. Learned lace making in a small class. (25 mins)Collected lace bobbins and lace patterns. Started designing her own patterns. Then taught it at Elstow Craft Centre, Olney and Woburn Sands, plus private pupils. Showed lace at craft fairs. Went into business selling her patterns world-wide. Satisfaction in reviving lace making. (32 mins) END OF INTERVIEW Original Interview 120 mins

18 June 2002

From: 1930 To: 2002

item

London Brick Company,
Igranic Electric Company Limited,
Pilkington,
Zigatelli,
Cadena Cafes Limited,
Dudeney & Johnston Ltd

technician, employment of women, brick worker, fog, midwives, CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES, fish and chip shops, World War Two, radio, swimming, watercolour, Dame Alice Harpur School, curriculum Latin, geographer, women's education, coal trade, wages/conditions, gender issues, air raid shelters, prisoners of war, American Army, dancing, skating, Poles, Czechs, French, cinema, geology, pollution, chimneys, lace maker, crafts, business, Lancashire, Liverpool, BEDFORD, ELSTOW, GOLDINGTON, PAVENHAM, CLAPHAM, STEWARTBY, Southampton Cranberry Terrace