"It had always been my ambition to become a nurse and on 6th June 1940, the day after I was 18, I went to work at St Woolos Hospital.

In the early hours of 13th September 1940 there was an air raid; we had to get the children down from the top floor to the shelter. There was an almighty bang. I rushed out to find that a German bomber had crashed into a house on Stow Park Avenue.

I was one of the first to arrive at the scene and someone shouted “Petrol!” as there was the real danger of an explosion and fire. I was able to pull the co-pilot from the wreckage but I couldn’t help him; he was already dead. All I good do was to close his eyes - they were a beautiful brown - and remove his cap. Then the ARP arrived and took over.

Showtime

I had to stop nursing for a year because of poor health. When I was better, I met Freddie Bayliss through my interest in music and drama. Freddie suggested I join a “concert party”. When he saw how much I enjoyed it, he said “If you come and work with me, you can be in all the shows”, so I applied to work at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Newport. Starting in 1941, I worked as a tally clerk there for two years.

Suet pudding

I used to start work at 7.30 am and work until 7.00 pm with an hour off for lunch, or finishing at lunchtime on Saturday. I don’t remember ever going hungry (only when I was nursing) but as I didn’t eat meat, I had to take what was available. I remember plain cooking - suet puddings, things that filled you up. After work there were rehearsals from 7.00 to 8.00 or sometimes 9 o’clock. Then when I got home, I had music practice until 10 o’clock, as well as first thing in the morning. I was thrilled to get my music degree in 1942, after all the hard work.

...and the tea boy!

I remember lots of people who worked at the Factory. There was Mr Clark from the Woolwich Royal Ordnance Factory, who worked with Freddy Bayliss in the inner office and Mr Pigram (also from the Woolwich Factory) in the outer office. Other office staff included Enid Tyrell from Risca, Muriel Griffiths, Olive Scott, Ann Stark and Olwen Wallace. On the shop floor, there was Ernie Stroud - the manager; Edith Kane worked on the gantry; there was Eileen Cook, Ivy Redman, Betty Thomas who handled the invoices on the floor, George Lowndes, Jack Bale, Howard Jones, Phyllis Wilford, Trevor Daniels, Joe Watts on heavy lifting, Doreen Rogers - in charge of First Aid, and the messenger boy (and tea boy) Garth Smith.

I had my 21st birthday party on the stage at the Little Theatre. My fiancé, William, didn’t turn up; there was no message, nothing. Afterwards, I found out that he had been shanghaied and sent abroad the day before with the army.

Dame Laura Knight

I can remember Dame Laura Knight coming to paint Ruby Loftus. Laura Knight was a lovely person, very friendly and kind. She seemed old-fashioned to me even then; she wore a long flowing skirt and a painting smock, with her hair pinned up.

My friend Joyce Holmes, who later married Cliff Nelson, worked at the lathe next to Ruby’s. We were strongly discouraged from distracting people at work - the work had to be carried out with great precision and moreover, it was dangerous - there were several very nasty accidents. A young woman called Ivy lost an eye; another girl lost an arm. And in spite of the snoods we wore which were supposed to keep our hair away from the machinery, there were, nevertheless, cases where women were scalped.

Unfortunately, in 1943 I got appendicitis and went to Morecambe to recuperate with my future husband’s family. I worked in the Canadian Treasury, converting the pay of Canadian servicemen stationed in Britain into sterling.

In 1944, I came back to Newport to nurse at the Lydia Beynon Maternity Hospital [now the Celtic Manor Resort]."

- Vera Machell (née Smale)
November 2005