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work two years before me, Dad bought her a coat - ‘Cos he said that she should have one to go to work in. When I left school to start work, I wanted a coat. Dad agreed to buy me one. We went up to our local drapery shop, Lidstone’s - they had two big shops - and Mum and Dad bought me a coat. It was chocolate brown with fur around the collar and cuffs.

    Colleagues at work at Ensign Cameras
    On the second Friday I got paid. Mum took my wage packet, put it on the table and said ‘You’ll open that when your father gets in’. Dad came home from work and saw that I’d got eight shillings. He give my mother seven for my keep and he said ‘Here’s a shilling for you.’ I thought that was really good, but then he said ‘Ah - wait a minute!’ He split the shilling into two sixpences. Now this is what my father done. He give me sixpence and said ‘This sixpence, you can have to spend. The other one, you can pay to me every week until you’ve paid me 25 shillings and a shilling extra for borrowing the money for your coat!’ Yet he gave my sister hers. My mother never forgave my father for that. You know what he said when I’d paid it up? ‘That’ll teach you not to borrow money!’ It was a good lesson, ‘cos I never ‘ave done - only the three pounds I borrowed from him for our bed when I got married. He said then ‘You can borrow it on condition that you pay it back with your first week’s wages when you go back to work.’ And I did.
    Florrie worked as an ‘engraver’, stencilling the company’s name onto the cameras. She was at Ensign until her marriage in 1927. I later became a ‘tester’ or inspector, a chargehand, supervising about a dozen female workers, and worked there for 18 years.
    When I was laid off for a few months, when they was a bit slack, I worked in this toy place. I got it on me own. Down the market it was. Well, what happened, I’d been there a fortnight. I was on the big power press (they’d found out that I’d used a hand press at Houghton-Butchers, so they put me on the power press. Great big heavy thing, it was).
    I started at eight in the morning and worked ‘til 12, then I used to rush down the market and have some dinner and come back at half past one and carry on ‘til half past five. I was working on these big sheets of metal - bodies for these toy cars - and, I went round to get some more metal and to go to the toilet (you had to ask the forelady for the key to the toilet door and you were only allowed to go twice in the morning. You got told off if you went more than twice). I came back and they’d oiled my machine and mucked about with it, so the pedal was rather low on the floor. I put my foot on the pedal and slipped, so I put out me hand to save meself and squashed me finger on the press. They stopped the press then and sent me home on me own. I was really in pain and remember walking down the market and around Woolworths and they was watching me in case I passed out.
    I got down Coppermill Lane and, when I reached home, Mum said ‘What you doin’ home?’ I told her that I’d hurt meself. Florrie was still in bed, so Mum said ‘Come on Florrie, we’ve got to get Ethel to hospital.’ My sister got up, took one look at me and passed out! So I said ‘She’s not much good to me, I’ll go to hospital on me own.’ I went to Connaught Hospital and they gave me five stitches in my finger. After that, I wouldn’t go back to the toy company, so I returned to Houghton-Butcher and they said that I could start in the inspections department. I really loved that job and enjoyed going to work.
    Dad used to wear a flat cap for work and a trilby for going out. Mum used to like to wear hats too. When I was a kid, I would say to my Mum ‘You’ve always got second-hand things. You’ve never got no new clothes. When I grow up, I’ll get you something new. When I started work, I had that on my mind. It took me quite a long while to save £5, ‘cos I was only gettin’