Factory folk take a break in the sunshine
BOTH these images take us back to the days when many Black Country folk worked for large factories, a time when your workplace also served as the centre of your social life.
Sports teams, social clubs, and works trips were the norm back then, and the picture at left shows five workers from Dudley enjoying a day out at the seaside, in that ever-popular destination for Midlanders, Weston-supermare.
Both snaps were supplied by reader Marlene Obhrai, whose mother Marjorie Edwards is in the Weston group, at far left. Marjorie passed her exams for the Sir Gilbert Claughton School, and attended for a time, but was taken out by her mother at the age of 14 because the family needed an extra wage. She went to work at Ewarts factory in Dudley in 1937, and the works trip to Weston took place in the August of that year.
Above are a group of girls which includes Marjorie’s half-sister Jessie Gaunt, third from left. Jessie is known to have worked at Goodwin’s Flour Factory, also in Dudley, and at a foundry in Coneygre, though as Marlene points out the girls look too clean for the foundry.
Jessie and Marjorie lived in Hillcrest Road, Dudley, and prior to 1936, in Munitions Huts in Brewery Fields.
Do you recognise any of the unidentified workers, or can you tell us anything more about the firms mentioned above? We’d love to hear from you: email us on gjones@black countrybugle.co.uk, give us a call on 01384 889000, write to us, or pay us a visit at Black Country Bugle, Dudley Archive Centre, Tipton Road, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 4SQ.