Dangerous work at munitions factory
While on Remembrance Day we will all pause to give thought to the Fallen from the two world wars, we should also remember the vital role played by those on the Home Front.
The number of shells fired by the Allied and German forces, especially during the First World War, was unimaginable – some 300m at Ypres alone.
It has been calculated enough shells were fired in the four-year conflict to land one tonne of explosive on every square metre of the Western Front.
Those who have visited the battlefields will be aware of the “iron harvest”. Even today, 98 years after the armistice, French farmers still regularly plough up the spent shells which are left at the side of the field for a weekly collection by the authorities.
Of course someone had to make those shells and one of the biggest factories was at Uplees, near Faversham.
Staff were nearly all women and their constant proximity to the explosives caused many health problems.
Trinitrotoluene (TNT) in particular caused a discolouration of the skin and the women came to be known as “the girls with yellow hands”.
Much was done to romanticise the phenomenon and there were poems and music hall ballads lauding them, even though they were in fact being slowly poisoned.
Ena Naghi’s mother, Elizabeth Baker, was one of the girls with yellow hands. She worked there with friend Ollie Blunt.
Mrs Naghi, of Mote Avenue, Maidstone, said: ”Fortunately my mother suffered no long-term ill effects.”
Neither of the women were present at the factory on April 2, 1916, when it exploded. It was a Sunday, which was the women’s day off.
Sadly, there were plenty of soldiers and workmen present. Together with the fire brigade they fought a fire that started in some waste sacking but could not stop it spreading to the TNT.
The explosion killed 115 men and boys.
Elizabeth Baker and Ollie Blunt later found new employment together. They worked in the Foster Clark canning factory in Maidstone. They are seen in the photograph sifting through peas on a conveyor belt.
The photograph was taken on the occasion of a visit by broadcaster Richard Dimbleby (father of today’s broadcasters David and Jonathan) who was there to record an episode of his radio programme Down Your Way in around 1950.
Ena Naghi also worked at Foster Clarks – it was her first job when she left school at age 14 – and she too became a girl with yellow hands.
She said: “I joined in 1940 and was there four years. The thing I remember most was getting covered in yellow custard powder!”