PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

425WH
Munitions Workers
26 MARCH 2013
Munitions Workers
426WH
In 1886, the New Explosive Company of Stowmarket
was taken over by the Nobel Explosives Company of
Glasgow, which was owned by Alfred Nobel—the same
man who, when he died, left most of his wealth in trust
to fund several awards, one of which we know today as
the Nobel peace prize. In 1914, with war looming in
Europe, the then Secretary of State ordered and approved
the construction of a new plant at Pembrey, with the
Government bearing the full cost. It was agreed that the
Nobel Explosives Company would be retained as
administrative agents of the plant and that the 750-acre
site would remain Government property after the war.
The Pembrey plant was one of the first of more than
200 purpose-built TNT and propellant-manufacturing
factories in the UK during world war one.
As the second world war approached, work started in
July 1938 to build a new factory on the Pembrey site,
with the Ministry of Works acting as agents. It opened
in December 1939 under the control of the Ministry of
Supply, as one of several explosives Royal Ordnance
Factories making TNT. Unlike other factories, ROF
Pembrey also made tetryl and ammonium nitrate.
Production of explosives began in December 1939 and
reached its peak in 1942, producing 700 tons of TNT,
1,000 tons of ammonium nitrate and 40 tons of tetryl
each week. There was a complex arrangement of buildings,
spread out over the 750-acre site and set among the
sand hills. The magazines were carefully housed around
the plant and were well camouflaged to avoid detection
in case of possible air raid or sabotage. The site was
self-contained, having its own water plant and a power
station for electricity. In addition, the administrative
buildings, canteen, doctors’surgery, laundry, police barracks,
library and other offices were grouped together at the
main site. We can see how big it was.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, these factories were
under constant threat of attack. Indeed, shortly after
midday on Tuesday 10 July 1940, a single German
bomber plane made a sneak attack on the factory and
dropped about nine bombs just inside the main entrance
gates. Tragically, 10 workers were killed outright or died
later of their injuries, and others were injured, some
severely. Serious though the bombing was, had it been a
little later the casualties would have been much greater,
as many men and women would have been on their way
to the canteen for their lunch break.
Production continued at a much reduced scale after
the war, except for a sharp upturn in the early 1950s,
during the Korean war. One of the main functions of
the site after the war was to break down large quantities
of superfluous or obsolete ammunition. The TNT was
melted out of the shells by jets of hot water, and taken
to solidify on isolated stretches of sand, where it burned
off. The bright glowing flames of burning cordite lit up
the night sky, and could be seen for miles around; it was
quite spectacular.
Workers in the explosive process units were easily
recognised in the area because, as has already been
pointed out, the skin of their exposed face and hands
was tainted yellow. A stream running from the Royal
Ordnance Factory and joining the sea on the west side
of Pembrey was reddish in colour, as it had been tinted
by the TNT from the factory. That was more noticeable
at low tide—it was known locally as the “red river”—and,
as the water was always warmer than the sea, locals
regularly enjoyed swimming there during the summer
months.
The Royal Ordnance factory is now closed and there
is a country park on the site, which is on a spectacular
piece of coastline. Although I am delighted that munitions
workers were represented at the Cenotaph last year, we
very much hope that, in the National Memorial Arboretum,
in a medal for the individuals who are still alive, and in
something in Pembrey, we will a permanent memorial
to the work done by munitions workers.
10.8 am
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab): It is a pleasure to be
under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, to debate a
subject that is important for many of our constituents,
and to remember the tens of thousands, if not hundreds
of thousands, of people who worked in dangerous
industries during the war to keep our defences going in
that period.
I want to talk about the munitions factory at Aycliffe,
now Newton Aycliffe. In 1941, when Royal Ordnance
factory No. 59 opened in Aycliffe, the town of Newton
Aycliffe did not exist; it became a new town in 1947.
The former site of the ordnance factory is now the
second-largest industrial estate in the north-east. If
people go to the industrial estate, they can still see the
blast walls and some of the buildings where munitions
workers worked during that period. At its peak, in 1943,
the factory employed 17,000 people, 90% of whom were
women. Around the country, there were some 64,500
munitions workers who filled the shells and the bullets.
The importance of their work was recognised, as they
received visits from Winston Churchill, King George VI
and even Gracie Fields, who gave a beautiful rendition
of the Lord’s Prayer, which is well remembered by many
of the workers.
Filling shells and bullets is obviously dangerous work.
I understand from a study by Her Majesty’s Stationery
Office in 1940 that the Aycliffe Royal Ordnance factory
produced more than 700 million bullets during its period
of operation. The work was extremely repetitive, fragmented
and boring, but there were high levels of companionship
among the women as they daily risked their lives filling
bombs and bullets. Many of the women started work at
18, but the average age was 34. Workers were supposed
to be under the age of 50 to work at the factory, but
apparently a Mrs Dillon, who claimed she was 49, was
actually 69. She was the best worker in the factory,
losing only two days of work in two-and-a-half years.
She received the British Empire medal from the King
for her work.
The women who worked in the factory became known
as the Aycliffe Angels because, in numerous wartime
broadcasts, Lord Haw Haw used to say:
“The little angels of Aycliffe won’t get away with it.”
Although there was never a raid on the factory, because
it was secret, the workers faced terrible situations. I have
a personal interest in this story, because my grandma,
Isabella Woods, worked in the factory during that period.
Dorothy Addison spoke to the Northern Echo about her
time at the station. In a description of what she did, she
said:
“I was on ‘Group Five’ and our job was to weigh cordite, put it
into linen bags and sew gunpowder on top. This was put into
‘25-pounder shells’ and the next block had to put the detonator