Photo: VE day in Nesta's street, 1946

Description

After leaving school, Nesta worked in a bakery, icing cakes and cleaning tables but the money wasn't very good and she had to catch the bus into Wrexham. After that, she worked in a launderette in Llangollen, washing sheets for hotels, and they had to carry heavy sheets and put them in the rollers. She found it very hard work and couldn't cope and after about six weeks she heard about a job in a factory at Llangollen, which wove wool blankets. She started work in 1946; she was three years in the blanket factory, and went to the sanitary towel factory at seventeen. She said the sanitary towel factory and Johnson Fabrics were in Marchwiel, which is now Wrexham industrial estate. She met her husband in Johnsons Fabrics. He used to clean the fluff off all the looms. Julie, Nesta's daughter, said her father used to make excuses to go and clean Nesta's loom and she used to say “I had the cleanest loom in the place.” Nesta worked in several factories in and around Wrexham, including Hunts, which made units for electrical applicances, and Unilateral Ceramics. She moved factories often for various reasons, eg. family commitments or more money. She gained a lot of experience of work and, in one factory, she rose to be a charge hand. She thinks her health suffered from factory work and gave up eventually in 1978, when she was 47, though she did other jobs afterwards, like cleaning.

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