Tributes to the 27 who died at munitions firm in Bridgend

GOING back 10 years ago a tribute was paid to the dedicated Bridgend factory workers who died in the Second World War as a plaque was unveiled in their memory.

More than 30,000 staff were employed at the arsenal between 1940 and 1945, but some of the materials they handled were highly dangerous and 27 people were killed working there.

Thanks to Bridgend Civic Trust, the names of the 27 people who lost their lives were engraved on to a plaque in Dunraven Place, Bridgend.

At the unveiling, a statement from then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, read out by MP Huw Irranca-Davies, paid tribute to the employees for “working in hazardous conditions to help ensure the British way of life was preserved”. At its height, the Bridgend factory employed 32,000 people, 75% of them women, who travelled to work by train and bus from Ammanford, Swansea, Neath, Merthyr Tydfil, Pontypridd and from the Cynon, Rhondda and Bridgend valleys. Bridgend-based author Michael Clubb has written a book about the factory entitled The Welsh Arsenal. He said 27 people had died at the factory and many others sustained serious injuries, such as losing their hands or eyes. Mr Clubb said: “With detonators, you only have to drop something or trip for them to go off – and girls were working with trays of more than 50 at a time.” The factory’s old administrative building is now South Wales Police’s headquarters and the arsenal reservoir at the top of Brackla is still in use.

DON’TMISS BRIANLEEIN FRIDAY’SECHO

The unveiling of a memorial to workers who died at Royal Ordnance Factory 53 in Bridgend. Left is John McElligot, who lost his mother Georgina, and right is Edna Barber, who lost her father Thomas Bevan

Women working in detonators, the most dangerous part of the factory