However I was first sent to a training centre on the Team Valley Trading Estate for six months. There I met a friend who was a lot younger than me. We are still good friends today.

She was very good at the practical work and I was very poor at the practical work but I was good at the theory. The foreman just didn't like me and I didn't like him. Every time I took a piece of work up he wouldn't pass it.

I said, 'I am leaving, I'll get put in gaol, but I'm not coming back'.

So my friend said, 'Take this up.'

I said, 'I can't do that!'

But she said 'Go on'. I did and he passed it.

Jimmy White's was the No.1 factory on the Trading Estate. In fact it was an Aircraft Factory - aircraft components and we used to do the Halifax Bombers and the Spitfires. He picked six girls out to go and work for him. I was one of them and so was Jean, my friend. Well, she was great at it, she was very good.

They said to me 'I think you should go on inspection'. I landed in inspection and left poor Jean on the floor and we worked there until 1944 when I got married.

There were few people who knew how important the Trading Estate was. We were No I and there was a No 2 factory, which belonged to the White brothers. They were also making the same components as we were. It was so important really; when you left the factory it was a blank because you hadn't to talk about it, very secret. When we first went in it was a factory full of men but by the time we had been there a little over a year it was a factory of women all doing men's jobs so the men could go and do the fighting. It was marvellous to think that women who had only been at home could come and be trained to do such jobs. We did shift work - day shift and night shift - week and week about.

Even the Fashion world had to change over and there were many Fashion factories in the Team Valley. They had to turn straight over to army uniforms. Also there were a lot of other firms who had to turn over and do different war efforts.

There was a very good, big, gun factory. The Bren Gun Factory. The man himself was a Czech who had escaped during the war but all his family didn't. However he managed to bring out the formula that belonged to him and that's how it was called the Bren Gun factory because they called him Bren.

I really enjoyed working in the factory as I enjoyed the comradeship. You know when I worked in Fenwicks you couldn't speak - I mean you entered that door and that was it till you came out at night. I used to 'fire watch' in Fenwicks. Every Sunday we had to take our turns and go up watching the building. Everyone else did in the shops in Newcastle, not just Fenwicks. Everyone had to take part and mind there was no transport. You walked there and you walked back home. It was marvellous how everyone helped one another then you know.

When I worked in the Aircraft Factory we had to walk to the other side of the Team Valley to the Canteen. It was a very big canteen, everybody used it. I think the Government provided the food and paid the staff. In the factory it was 'Music while you work' in the morning and afternoon. It was lovely, such a big change from what I had been used to because all my life I had worked under restriction.

What a difference the War made to my life