I remember watching in this training-ground the manufacture of small aero-engine parts, exact in dimensions to within the smallest limits of tolerance. I put a query as to the wastage of material in such an operation, when handled by comparative new-comers. ‘Scrapping from this process’, replied the production manager with pride, ‘does not exceed a total average of one per cent.’ The women at work at the time had come from the most varied occupations. A large proportion had never worked outside their own home, others were domestic servants, cooks, housemaids, and so on, others were dressmakers from small towns, and one, I recall, was an assistant from a spa, where she had been engaged handing out ‘waters’ to invalids. ‘It is not the rank of society from which the student is drawn that matters,’ remarked an instructor; ‘it is the personality of the individual that counts.’
Every care has been taken by the Ministry of Munitions to make it easy for women of all classes to participate in their schemes of instruction. The middle class girl who has never undertaken independent work, the woman who has always lived and worked within the shelter of her own home, undoubtedly felt in many cases debarred from entering industrial life. The necessity of living away from her family, in order to enter a Training-School, the absence of home conditions in school or factory, the dread of an entirely masculine superintendence, all helped to strengthen artificial barriers between potential students and the needed engineering work. The Training Section, watching the development of its schemes, became aware of the necessity of making arrangements for students from the Welfare point of view, and an organization has thus developed by which the first steps in industrial life are made easy for the most apprehensive of new-comers.
Girl students by rail are met by a responsible woman official and are accompanied to suitable lodgings, or to hostels. In the event of pressure in accommodation, the new student is introduced to temporary apartments, or to a ‘Clearing Hostel’, where she awaits in comfort a vacancy. In the large Training Centres, a woman supervisor is in charge. She makes all arrangements as to the provision of meals, rest-rooms, cloak-rooms, First-Aid centres, and so on, and is ready to advise the women students on all points relating to their personal interests.
Women students are also enabled to wear a khaki uniform, as members of the Mechanical Unit of the Women’s Legion, a privilege found to be of distinct value to girls unaccustomed to steering an independent course in the more boisterous streams of life. The appreciation of the students of the safe-guarding of their individual desires crops out in unexpected places. In a handful of correspondence from students, one gleans such remarks as the following:
‘Mrs. H. never spares herself any trouble as long as she can make things pleasant for me, she considers it her “war work” to make munition workers happy, and it is very nice to meet people that appreciate what we are doing for our country.’...
‘We were met at the station by the works motor. All at once we turned up an avenue of lime-trees and drew up at the door of our country estate. It is a real lovely house and we revel in the glories of fresh air, lawns and gardens, good beds and well-spread tables. We cross a field to the works. Dinner and tea await us when we get here, and there is a well-stocked vegetable garden to give us fresh vegetables, so we all feel indeed that our lines are fallen in pleasant places, and we are very grateful.’
In these ways a bridge has been built by the Ministry of Munitions between the normal life of the women in this country and the work in the munitions factory.