Interview, Elizabeth Mary Lewis ("May Lewis") . Voices from the Factory Floor

Description

Former worker at Morris Motors factory, Llanelli and Modern Folding Doors, Tumble Carmarthenshire.

Although she passed into the grammar school, May didn’t go to it, but left school at 14 (1938). She apprenticed as a dressmaker. During the war she worked in Morris Motors (c.1940-5) – good money, making car radiators. She worked on Saturday mornings ‘full of curlers’. The supervisors were very strict – no talking. She had to ask the managers’ permission to marry. She married and left. In Morris Motors she wore trousers for the first time. There wasn’t a bath in her home. They had fun Xmas time. She worked in Hadfield (a shop) making curtains (c.1958-). She moved to the Folding Doors Factory c.1965 (until ?1968) on the machine stitching the doors. Unions and an accident there. Her husband was a coalminer – he lost his leg. She was made redundant. She describes meeting her husband and her married life.