I left school about a year before the war broke out in 1939. As we lived in the heart of London, we imagined that aeroplanes would be coming over in their hundreds to destroy the whole city. My father decided to take my grandmother and I down to Malmesbury, this being his family home.
I lived with my Aunt and Uncle at Milbourne for a couple of weeks and then, because I had to work, I went to stay with another Aunt in Bristol Street, sharing a bedroom with my cousin, Margot.
At first I worked in Burtons, a little grocery shop in the High Street that is now a Charity shop. Mr Laban was then the manager. It was very cold that winter and the door was always left open so that customers would not think that we were closed. Part of my job was to weigh up sugar and sultanas in small blue bags, 1 pound in weight, and also to serve customers in the front of shop. My legs and feet suffered with chilblains, but that didn't stop me going to the dances.
These were held twice a week in the Catholic School Hall. Mr Norris, an ex-London policeman was always on the door to keep an eye on things, and believe me, he did look very stern indeed! There were always lots of dance partners from the nearby Army Camps and RAF bases and we made many friends.
Some Army regiments were billeted at Charlton House (the home of Lord Suffolk), a lovely estate just outside Malmesbury.
A few weeks before Christmas, my cousin and I had the chance to work at the Air Ministry, which had just arrived from London and relocated to the well-known Westonbirt School. But I did not stay there very long I am afraid. My parents came down for Christmas and I then realised how homesick I had become.
London had been quiet and the expected air raids and bombing had not materialised. So it was decided that I would go back with them to London. I resumed my old job as an apprentice in a Beauty Parlour in Baker Street. In lots of ways I did not want to leave the countryside, but ties of home and family came first.
All went well until the following September when the air raids over London started in earnest. Every night we had to go to nearby shelters After a month of this every night, my father decided enough was enough and this time we all packed up and left London for Malmesbury once again.
We stayed again with our relatives in Milbourne – how kind they all were – until we were able to move in to a house down Kings Wall in Malmesbury. This house had a beautiful view at the back and a little stream at the bottom, where ducks swam up and down. We had chickens in a shed and our own vegetables growing in the garden. My father's country instincts were certainly going back to grass roots!
My father and I both went to work in a factory located in a large, beautiful house just outside the town. Messrs E. K. Cole from Southend, well known for their wireless sets, had been relocated there away from the bombing. They had been contracted to make equipment for the Army and Navy and naturally it was all very secret. But we did hear the whisper that some of the work was to do with Radar, an unknown quantity at that time.
First of all I was sent to work in the Winding Department, but after a while went on to soldering, which I preferred although the soldering iron can be a lethal weapon if you are not careful. They were very large and heavy then, not like the slim ones used today. Mr Rouse, who sat behind me on Inspection, and I used to argue about music and could never agree. I remember Charlie Exton, whose Malmesbury Memories I have just read. Dennis Maslen was our charge-hand and he married the daughter of the Barretts, who at that time were in charge of the department.
Mr Taylor came next in charge and he was a real taskmaster. But he had plenty of charm when he wanted us to stay on later at the end of an already long day. There was a war on, so we didn't really grumble. Later on we were transferred to another building that was much nicer and lighter. We also made up cables on boards, which made a change. Eventually we went in to the main building, a huge room filled with long benches. There were no windows so it was completely lit by electric lighting over the benches.
Looking back it was a happy time. We used to sing all the well-known songs of the day. Every morning we had a radio programme on called 'Worker's Playtime' during which an orchestra or band played. Olive Kemp would run a little betting game, a penny a tune, if your tune was played on the radio, you kept all the money in the tin. After a while you got to know which tunes would probably be played, but it was a little bit of fun.
One day my friend Phyllis Shepherd asked me if I would sing with her and Eileen Knox in the canteen at lunchtime. It was proposed to get some entertainment going in the lunch hour and Bill Reynolds, a 'chaser', was keen to get this organised. The three of us did sing together and afterwards I was asked to sing on my own the next time they did a show. Eventually this led to the formation of a Concert Party. We had a ventriloquist, a singer of songs and a comedian. I sang ballads and also little sketches were put together. We performed several concerts for charity in Malmesbury Town Hall and also in Chippenham. The last concert we did was a pantomime "Robinson Crusoe" which was well received. I have often wondered since how the canteen ladies put up with all our hours of practice in the canteen!"
During the last few years I was there, now that the war was over, many of the contracts had begun to be wound down and many of the assembly lines had to stop. So we had doubts about how long the factory would be able to continue.
But then it transpired that the factory had got a contract to build a 'walkie-talkie' set for the Armed Forces, a much smaller one than was in use at that time. I became a 'bench leader', supplying components to the operators to keep the line flowing and also checking on each set as it went along the line through the various stages of test and inspection.
Sometimes we had power cuts. A cheer would go up in the Assembly room as it meant a break in the work, as we couldn't see to do anything. All except Frank, that is. He would carry on with his assembling and ask me for more resistors and condensers. Frank was blind and had lost his sight when his tank was bombed and caught fire during a battle – a very courageous man.
Later on we became even busier. The WS88 Line, as we called it, took on more operators. I became the 'charge-hand', John Ponting was the Foreman and Mr Sweetnam was our overall boss and had been since the beginning.
In 1948 I married Alex Baker. Alex and I had been at school together in London and had always kept in touch. I then went part-time and had to give up the '88' Line, which I was very sad about. I then did office work, which was interesting. In 1955 my Ekco life came to an end when I had my first child, a daughter, Debbie, followed in 1957 by a son, Chris.
When Alex and I eventually retired our son-in-law, Peter, said we could find no lovelier place to live than the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. So we did move to Lydney in the Forest of Dean. My daughter, Debbie, was a Psychiatric Sister and was in charge of a day hospital 5 miles away in Coleford. We love the area and have now lived here for 18 years.
Sadly Debbie died 8 years ago from Myeloma, a form of leukaemia, leaving two lovely granddaughters for us to see grow up. Chris lives in London and it is through him that I came to write my Malmesbury Memories.
I have so many memories of Malmesbury and it will always have a place in my life. Childhood memories of holidays, coming down from London, changing trains at Dauntsey, knowing we were nearly there, then on to the Malmesbury branch train at Little Somerford. All the trains were steam driven. I remember one train driver, "Buller" Fry. We always had to go and say hello to him as he was related somehow. My father's mother's surname was 'Fry'.
We can trace our family back to the time of King Athelstan, so both my father and my husband took up their 'Common Rites' whilst we lived there. My husband was the co-founder of Malmesbury Swimming Club and spent 20 years teaching children how to swim. He continued to do this over here for another 18 years!
Now we are coming to our later years and looking back and wondering where everyone is and who is still with us. The faces are still there, but not always the names. Luckily I have a large photograph of all the employees working during the war years and beyond, taken at Ekco in 1949.
