Read Online Jellied Eels and Zeppelins by Sue Taylor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sue Taylor
Tags: History, War, Memoirs
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died aged 94. She was in a nursing home. The last time I saw her, she still had the same mischievous laugh. May died many years ago. She left me some money and I bought an exercise machine with it!’
The girls from Ensign. Doris is far left, May 2nd from right and Ethel 3rd from right
Eleven
More Cameras, Pineapples and Nice Hot Rolls
‘I used to love to go to work, but we had to be through the gates before eight o’clock in the morning or pay a fine a threepence.
Being a tester, I had to make sure that the cameras were all perfect, that no light could get in and that they were all clean and polished. There were all different types of cameras - big ones, little tiny ones, box cameras. We used to go into the darkrooms to test them.
One day, I went up to Wood Street at lunchtime and brought back a pineapple. I started to cut it up in the darkroom with a small pocket knife I had. Just as we were about to eat it, the foreman came in. ‘This is what you do when you’re supposed to be working!’ he said. Then he rolled up and said ‘I don’t mind as long as you give me a lump!’
Every Saturday morning before eight o’clock after I’d got out at the station at Wood Street, I used to pop into the baker’s on the corner and buy half a dozen rolls. Then I’d go into the dairy next door and buy half a pound of butter. I’d get to work, take all my purchases into the darkroom five minutes before we were due to start, and cut and butter the nice hot rolls for our breakfast. The foreman used to say ‘I don’t know why you’re hiding in there, ‘cos I know what you’re doing and I’d like one of those rolls!’ His name was George and he always had his breakfast of a hot roll with us every Saturday morning!
I was very fond of whistling while I was doing the cameras and once, when I had just started work, I was whistling away cleaning the cameras and George was upstairs in the focussing department. The darkrooms were under the stairs and, when he had got so many cameras finished, he would have to come downstairs to test them for light in the darkrooms, see. Well, this particular time when he came downstairs, he heard me whistling and said sternly ‘You’re not paid to sit there whistling, get on with your work!!’ I told my colleagues ‘I don’t like that foreman one bit,’ but in the end, we got on ever so well with him, when I realised that he was really nice and didn’t mind what you did as long as you got the job done.
Sometimes, they’d take you off what you were doing and put you in another department, to make sure that you could do all the jobs and not just one. Once, I was put on packing - the times I cut my fingers on the paper!
But I really loved my job at Ensign, working with all the girls and everything. We never ‘ad no rows, not one and no one took advantage of you. However, when our manager left, we had a new one, who was a right so and so. He gave me a camera and said ‘Do that now!’ I said that I wouldn’t do it while he was watching me. He was one of those people who look at you as if you are a bit of dirt. He never used to say thank you.
The second time he demanded that I check this important camera for the Gold Coast immediately, I told him ‘I’ll bring it up to you when I’ve finished it and I’ll not do it with you standing behind me!’ When I took it up to him, I demanded a pay rise, and I got it!’
‘The girls’ from Ensign at Walton. Ethel top left, Doris top middle
Twelve
Motor Bikes and Primus Stoves
Joe Elvin had been working in the woodyard next to Ensign, when he met Ethel. When the woodyard had to make him redundant, because of the decreasing supply of wood, Ethel managed to get him a job at Ensign:
‘Joe had always loved doing small work and, as a hobby, used to make radios, so I thought that he might like a job working with cameras.
Joe was an inspector of the air force cameras - he used to make and repair them - during the Second World War. Oh - he
The girls from Ensign. Doris is far left, May 2nd from right and Ethel 3rd from right
Eleven
More Cameras, Pineapples and Nice Hot Rolls
‘I used to love to go to work, but we had to be through the gates before eight o’clock in the morning or pay a fine a threepence.
Being a tester, I had to make sure that the cameras were all perfect, that no light could get in and that they were all clean and polished. There were all different types of cameras - big ones, little tiny ones, box cameras. We used to go into the darkrooms to test them.
One day, I went up to Wood Street at lunchtime and brought back a pineapple. I started to cut it up in the darkroom with a small pocket knife I had. Just as we were about to eat it, the foreman came in. ‘This is what you do when you’re supposed to be working!’ he said. Then he rolled up and said ‘I don’t mind as long as you give me a lump!’
Every Saturday morning before eight o’clock after I’d got out at the station at Wood Street, I used to pop into the baker’s on the corner and buy half a dozen rolls. Then I’d go into the dairy next door and buy half a pound of butter. I’d get to work, take all my purchases into the darkroom five minutes before we were due to start, and cut and butter the nice hot rolls for our breakfast. The foreman used to say ‘I don’t know why you’re hiding in there, ‘cos I know what you’re doing and I’d like one of those rolls!’ His name was George and he always had his breakfast of a hot roll with us every Saturday morning!
I was very fond of whistling while I was doing the cameras and once, when I had just started work, I was whistling away cleaning the cameras and George was upstairs in the focussing department. The darkrooms were under the stairs and, when he had got so many cameras finished, he would have to come downstairs to test them for light in the darkrooms, see. Well, this particular time when he came downstairs, he heard me whistling and said sternly ‘You’re not paid to sit there whistling, get on with your work!!’ I told my colleagues ‘I don’t like that foreman one bit,’ but in the end, we got on ever so well with him, when I realised that he was really nice and didn’t mind what you did as long as you got the job done.
Sometimes, they’d take you off what you were doing and put you in another department, to make sure that you could do all the jobs and not just one. Once, I was put on packing - the times I cut my fingers on the paper!
But I really loved my job at Ensign, working with all the girls and everything. We never ‘ad no rows, not one and no one took advantage of you. However, when our manager left, we had a new one, who was a right so and so. He gave me a camera and said ‘Do that now!’ I said that I wouldn’t do it while he was watching me. He was one of those people who look at you as if you are a bit of dirt. He never used to say thank you.
The second time he demanded that I check this important camera for the Gold Coast immediately, I told him ‘I’ll bring it up to you when I’ve finished it and I’ll not do it with you standing behind me!’ When I took it up to him, I demanded a pay rise, and I got it!’
‘The girls’ from Ensign at Walton. Ethel top left, Doris top middle
Twelve
Motor Bikes and Primus Stoves
Joe Elvin had been working in the woodyard next to Ensign, when he met Ethel. When the woodyard had to make him redundant, because of the decreasing supply of wood, Ethel managed to get him a job at Ensign:
‘Joe had always loved doing small work and, as a hobby, used to make radios, so I thought that he might like a job working with cameras.
Joe was an inspector of the air force cameras - he used to make and repair them - during the Second World War. Oh - he
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