NORA O’CONNOR, who ran a Berkshire residential club housing female munitions workers:

The making of munitions was hazardous in the extreme, involving the use of TNT and, in spite of rigorously enforced safely precautions, ‘blows’ did occur.

Having refused one girl permission to go to a dance, I was immensely saddened by my next news of her – she had been killed by an explosion at work.

The fact that a worker had been killed didn’t deter her companions; they showed neither fear nor hesitation in carrying on.”

BELOW 20-year-old Benci James and 22-year-old Ellen Long manage two milk rounds in the Old Gate area, Hebden Bridge. Circa 1942

ABOVE One of the first pictures of the Women’s Fire Service Pump Crew. June 17, 1942

BELOW Telephonists at Whitley Bay Post Office try out their gas masks as they prepare for any eventuality during ARP training. August 27, 1938

Wives of naval men working as painters in a shipyard. 1942

ABOVE Mrs Ada Riches, of Woodbridge, Suffolk, had always swept her own chimneys. Because of the shortage of men during the war, she became a sweep, and cleaned chimneys in Woodbridge and the villages around. Mrs Riches took her brushes, rods and sootbag around on a bicycle. She started work at 7am, and by noon had cleaned 10 chimneys. The head and hair protector, reminiscent of the Middle Ages, was her own design

BELOW Women doing men’s jobs, painting the kerb white so it can be seen during the blackout. 1941

ABOVE Women builders carrying out repairs in June 1941

ABOVE AN Air Raid Warden sounds her gas rattle in Kingston upon Thames during a gas alarm. April 1941

Factory girls at a well known London electrical firm race to be first served at the cafe for lunch. February 1942