Munitions Workers

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

As other colleagues have already done this morning, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on securing this debate. Like one or two others who are here in Westminster Hall today, I am also a member of the all-party group on recognition for munitions workers. I also have to declare a further interest; before I came to this place, I was a munitions worker myself for 18 years. So there was life before this place.

In considering the task that was laid before people during the second world war and the first world war, I recognise only too well just how hard the work of munitions factory staff was. However, that work was being done in completely different circumstances to those that exist today. The “war effort” is something that people glibly talk about, but they never recognise just how difficult it really was back in those days.

I will go back to the first world war. In my local community—I say “my local community”, but it is actually in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) —the two villages of Eastriggs and Gretna were built around the manufacture of munitions. In fact, the village of Eastriggs is called “the Commonwealth village”, and that can be seen in its street names: Halifax road; Sydney road; Melbourne avenue; Winnipeg way; and Auckland way. All around that village, there are streets and avenues with names from the Commonwealth.

I pay tribute to the local people in that area who have developed what could be seen as a tourist attraction. They have developed a project called “The Devil’s Porridge”, where they put on a display of what life was like during the first world war. They have tried to replicate that period as best they can, and I must say that they have made a fantastic effort to replicate what it was like to work in a munitions factory back then.

I also think back to the presentation of awards and badges to the Land Army girls. I must say that some of the hardy souls I met at that time made the comment, “Well, we were very lucky, we escaped the munitions factories”, because they were given a choice: did they want to go to work on the land, or did they want to go to the munitions factories? Quite clearly, they wanted to be out in the open air rather than working in a munitions factory, which they recognised was very dangerous work. Unfortunately, that offer was not made to some people, who were told, “You are going to munitions factories.” We must also keep it in mind that the women at that time were paid only half what the men were being paid, so there was not just a workforce dominated by women; there were men in the factories, who were actually paid twice as much as the women were.

Colleagues have mentioned today the companionship and comradeship found in munitions factories, and I have to say that I have found it absolutely fascinating, during the period that the all-party group has been established, to meet some of the women workers. They related their own stories and I must say that some of them could not be printed in Hansard, because of some of the antics that these people got up to. They were safe in a workplace, but their antics outwith included social events, social evenings, even cycling 10 or 15 miles to a dance. That was not uncommon and when we consider that many of today’s young people will ask “Can I get a lift?” if they are asked to pop down to the shops, we realise that these women in the factories were real hardy souls who saw nothing whatever as a challenge.

They also experienced a lot in the workplace. We have already heard about the “canary girls”, but all of the people in munitions factories were working with chemicals of all kinds, including acids. Sadly, many individuals were left disfigured because of severe acid burns. There were some acids that people worked with that resulted in their teeth falling out. So it was not pretty, but it was the war effort.

I also thank the Royal British Legion for enabling a number of these ex-munitions workers to take part in the Armistice day parade last year. I actually came down to London to be with two ladies from my constituency who took part in that parade, Margaret Proudlock and Margaret Shields. They will be for ever grateful to the all-party group for achieving that initial recognition. However, as hon. Members, including the Minister, have heard we want that little bit extra—something a little bit special—for individuals to be recognised.

The site that I worked at was the Royal Ordnance factory Powfoot, which was managed by Nobel Explosives, a subsidiary of ICI. I remember distinctly being told about the site on my first day, “There’s 365 acres here, boy. One for every day of the year.” That was founded in 1940. Also in my constituency was a site at Edingham in Dalbeattie, built in 1939. There was a further subsidiary site of Nobel’s in Dumfries itself, at Drungans. In checking one or two things, I came across the following in Hansard from 25 February 1946:

“Mr. McKie asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement regarding future plans for the munitions factory at Drungans, Dumfries.”

At that time, the President of the Board of Trade was Sir Stafford Cripps, who replied:

“This factory has just been declared surplus to Government requirements. It is, in its present form, suitable only to a limited extent for peace-time production, but the Board of Trade will endeavour to make arrangements for it to be used to the best possible advantage.”—[Official Report, 25 February 1946; Vol. 419, c. 548.]

That factory continued to operate from that date into the late 1980s, when it closed. The Powfoot site, which I worked at, ceased production in November 1992, after the privatisation of Royal Ordnance factories.

I want to add a little support to what has been said this morning. The Imperial War museum has been helpful to us. I am confident that we will get something at the national memorial arboretum and that there will be an effort to raise the £100,000 that we want. I also thank Scott Dodsworth of BAE Systems for all the work that he has done.

One challenge that became apparent when I first raised this issue was that we have no records of these individuals. In my home town of Annan, a lady at the Historic Resources Centre, Renée Anderson, has a card index system of some 2,600 members of staff who were employed. It is fascinating. I do not know how old this lady thinks I am, but she produced a significant number of photographs, some of which were black and white and from way back and asked if I recognised any of the people. Of course I did not, but I am sure that people in the community will come forward to try to identify them. Renée wants to put on a display about what that site did.

As we have heard this morning, these places were secret. I met a chap a good number of years ago who used to fly for the RAF. He said, “We were always told to keep away from this area, because we had no idea what was there. We were told, ‘Do not fly within this specific zone.’” People were moving around that site something that could, with the slightest spark, have decimated the area. To give an example, I am sure that colleagues will remember incidents in recent years, in Peru and Holland, where fireworks have gone off in an enclosed area and totally destroyed it, and have taken the paintwork off vehicles in the vicinity. That is the ferocity with which this material—small arms propellant—burns. It is ferocious and, when it goes, people stand no chance at all. That is the sort of environment that women worked in during the war.

My latter days at the Powfoot site were spent as a production supervisor. People in a work force do complain and my answer to complaints from some of the guys that that was dirty, heavy work, was, “This was women’s work during the war”—not demeaning anyone, but just showing the fortitude of those women in ensuring that our guys on the front line were properly armed.

I hope that the Minister will speak to his colleagues. It is little to ask that these women get individual recognition. I know that the records are not as we would like to be able to identify each and every one of them, but the information channelled to my office and in the Historic Resources Centre in my home town is a good starting point. I am sure that other colleagues will work tirelessly to ensure that we get official recognition for these people who made the difference to our troops on the front line, especially during the second world war.