ROF Stories:
Barrel Section to Big Screen

Before they married on 12th February 1943, Bill Dunford and Peggy Lawrence were both working at ROF Newport.
This is their story.

"William Charles Dunford, originally from Wales, was working in London at the outbreak of war in 1939. He came back to Newport and stayed in digs in Marlborough Road. He was sent to work at the newly constructed Factory as setters were required to assist the new workforce of women machinists.

Bill worked in the barrel section and starred in the 1942 film Night Shift made at the factory.

I began work at the Factory in April 1941 and lived with my aunt in Bishpool Lane. I was employed as a "work taker" in the wages department where I kept the records of each worker's output for piecework payment. I worked two weeks of days followed by two weeks of nights.

I remember when Bill first arrived he was rather shy, and finding himself surrounded by so many attractive young women, he told everyone that he was married. He asked me to go out with him but I said I couldn't go out with a married man. To prove he was single he invited me to meet his parents and we got engaged in August 1942.

When I married Bill on 12th February 1943 we moved to a flat reserved for war workers at 23 Elgar Avenue.

When Bill was promoted to Foreman we were given a house at 32 Elgar Circle.

We lived near the Loftus family and I remember Dame Laura Knight coming to the Factory to paint Ruby's picture. Typical of the times, Dame Laura seemed to smoke all the time she was working."

- Peggy Dunford (née Lawrence)
November 2005

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