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The Second World
War had a significant impact on the Holwell works. Many of the male workers
entered military service, increasing the number of women employed at the
site. At Stanton, the products being made canged, with
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What happened
after you finished your apprenticeship?
I got deferred until I was 21 and then I was called up into the
Forces. I did 2 years and I did that as a vehicle mechanic.
And you came back to Holwell Iron Works did you?
I came straight back, that was the ruling at the time that was a
must for the employer that they took you back to do the same job
as you did before you went.
(Cecil Robinson)
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And were there
any women employed at that time?
Oh there were
a lot of women. Women did all the heavy jobs, burning oxyacetylene,
burning of steel scrap which came in by the hundred lorry loads
a day, driving cranes, in the machine shop which machined these
bomb cases before they went off the the filling stations. All those
sorts of jobs that would normally have been a man's job were done
by women.
(Jack Smith)
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The products being
made also changed with Stanton producing bomb cases.
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The ministry
of Supply on an empty
site at Stanton built a foundry for making 500lb bomb cases for
the RAF. Now this was a distinct change for Stanton because this
was steel and not cast iron so a certain group of people which did
not include me had to go off to Sheffield first of all to learn
the technique for producing molten steel rather than molten cast
iron. But when the plant open
ed I then moved
into that plant to take charge of one of the furnaces, a converter
furnace which changed cast iron into steel. But when we got into
full production we were turning out some 10000 500lb cases a week.
(Jack Smith)
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