Remembering World War II

Remembering World War II. . , Employing Women , As more men journeyed to the battlefront, the country needed to fill critical jobs with new recruits. The employment of women became vital to ensuring Great Britain continued to thrive. Nationally, by 1942, nine out of every ten women under the age of 51 worked in the forces or industry. Locally, the Thermal Syndicate Factory at Northside, Workington managed a young workforce of 92 - mainly girls - to make high grade silica quartz valves used in radar sets for the RAF. High Duty Alloys at Distington and Workington National Shell Factory, sited on Stanley Street, also employed high percentages of female workers. Drybread foundry on the Marsh, South Street, Workington employed women to strip back Aero engines taken from recovered aircraft at the end of the war. Such was the success of employing women in skilled jobs, the Borough Council aided the war effort in 1942 by opening two nurseries to support child care., Tunisia , An emotional transcript regarding a Workington Iron and Steelworks built railway line located in Tunisia during world war two:, In 1942, during the bottle for North Africa in Tunisia the RAF were based at Bizerte. One of our planes had engine difficulties and had to make a force landing close to the Tunisian coast. The RAF sent a party of ground crew to either retrieve the plane or fix the problem., However, the ground crew got lost in a sand storm and had to crawl towards the coast. In the process of this one of the party Bill Williamson found the railway line from Tunis to Alexandria and he was firstly surprised and secondly upset because on the railway track itself was cast "Workington". He had been away from home in Cockermouth/Workington for three years fighting the enemy., Runaway Munitions Train , A perilous incident occurred in 1944 when a munitions train of 20 wagons ran away on the Buckhill/RNAD line on the incline down from Seaton. The signalman at Seaton, being alerted by the continuous whistling of the runaway train managed to divert the train away from the buffer siding and onto the main line. The train ran towards Workington Central station eventually coming to a halt on unoccupied rails at Navvies Bridge (the Cofflocks Junction). The prompt action of the signalman prevented an explosion which could have destroyed the centre of the town had the train crashed into the buffers., Rationing , 1941 clothes were rationed with an allowance of sisty-six coupons per year. A gentleman's overcoat was valued at sixteen coupons. Along with the banning of turn-ups on trousers came a reduction in the number of pockets, while men's shirt tails were reduced by two inches in length., During those balmy summers of days gone by, younger ladies would walk out in the evening dressed in floral striped or gingham outfits with a brightly coloured fur half-jacket (rabbit fur of course) or fox fur stole and wearing a wisp of a hat and six inch heels! Nylons were rare, so some ladies painted their legs with gravy browning and drew a straight line down the calves with an eyebrow pencil for the seam. Eighteen clothing coupons could buy a smart suit, but it was a very lucky bride who could be dressed in the traditional white gown these were made from the silk of a parachute (with no questions asked as to how the material was obtained)., Workington's War Memorial , In November 1955 a further 170 names of the Fallen of the Second World War from Workington were placed inside a casket and sealed within the town's memorial., Spies , In the 1930s German "tourists" visited Workington amongst other places, and photographed dock installations. These important photographs were used to produce detailed maps used by the Luftwaffe to pinpoint key locations during the war. These cunning tourist spies provided information to support Germany's war effort., "C" Company , C Company was the Railway Transport Defensive Branch of the Home Guard. Initially two railwaymen enrolled, to be joined by volunteers from the Cumberland Motor Services (Buses), General Post Office and Electricity Board employees. Until the arrival of the American rifles, only broom handles had been used to guard the various railway premises. It was agreed that the vulnerable sections of the railway infrastructure be guarded. These included Workington Bridge Station Pump House, which provided water for the goods yards; Calva Junction Signal Box, which controlled the Buckhill Colliery; and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot (better known as the Dump); and 'Navvies Bridge' which carried the Cleator and Workington railway line across the River Derwent., Evacuees , On the 1st September 1939 a party of 450 children and teachers from Newcastle and South Shields arrived at Workington Main station. They were led to St Michael's school rooms, where their personal detail were recorded. They were then sent to other schools in Workington, Harrington, Nortside and Siddick People offering homes (billets) were paid 10s 6d (10 shillings and 6 pence - equivalent to less than £10 today) for a single child and a further 8s 6d for an extra child or mother., They were all located to local people for their billets. Eventually 1,200 school children and teachers arrived followed by another 1,250 children under school age. Evacuees continued to come and go for the duration of wartime, including people from Barrow avoiding the bombing, then Londoners fleeing the Blitz, and later the Dutch who had a hard winter in 1945. Finally some Jewish children who had survived the camps arrived after 1945., Stories of Evacuation , "In September 1939, my brother aged eight, my sister aged six, and myself not yet five years old, were evacuated with other children from our hometown of South Shields in County Durham, to Workington in Cumberland. I have memories of new squeaky shoes and a new pink coat and hat. I remember having a label pinned on my coat and carrying a cone shaped packet of dolly mixtures as we walked in lines to the local railway station. Some of our teachers came with us and shared the teaching in our new school where we sat three to a desk with local children who teased us because of our Geordie accents., At first there was much animosity between us and the local children, especially at school. Sometimes there was trouble in the street on the way home with both sides eyeing each other suspiciously as we hurled insults and stones, each considering the other to be an enemy far more deadly than any Nazi., On arrival at Workington, we had been taken into a big church hall where we stood in lines while the grown ups walked up and down with the billeting officers, claiming the children they had agreed to take in. We watched as my brother was taken away by an old lady with grey hair and an unsmiling face but I held on tight to my sister's hand and we were taken in by a couple named Mr and Mrs Heywood who we soon came to know as Aunty Olive and Uncle Tom. We learned later that they had thought we were twins when they first saw us., Uncle Tom gave piano lessons in the front room and we were taught to answer the door to his pupils on arrival and take their coats before showing them into the room., We were well looked after while we were there and sometimes they would be waiting in the car for us as we came out of school."