There was another brush with "Authority" which I recall, A Mrs. Richie lived at the top of the hill near the factory – widow of a Colonel, I think. She had a daughter of call-up age, and she came down to the factory to see me when the call up of girls was announced, asking if I could give her daughter a job. I referred her to Personnel Dept., saying that we were very short of girls of her education, and would probably use her in the factory Test Dept. With this, she got very annoyed, saying that the girl was well brought up, a daughter of a Colonel and she did not want her to work on a bench!
The upshot was, she withdrew the application, and the girl was duly called up into the Army. A year or so later, Mrs Richie got her revenge. The demand for water at the factory was by then very heavy, but fortunately, we drew on our own reservoir on the hill opposite this lady's house, and when the well which fed the reservoir proved to have insufficient flow, it was supplemented by a connection we had made to the local mains supply.
When, each night, this was turned on for some hours, the pressure in the mains dropped, Mrs. Richie phoned in to say that she was accustomed to have a bath late each night, and that our drawing on the mains supply interfered with this habit. I suggested that she bathed in the morning when we were not drawing water, but she rang off in a huff apparently wrote to the Minister of labour. The next thing I heard was when Bill Braine, then the Regional Controller of that Ministry came to see me.
We established a close collaboration on matters of labour supply, and he showed me a memo to him, signed by Ernest Bevin himself, informing him that I was exceeding my authority in depriving this lady of her right to water, and would he see that it ceased at once. What it had to do with Bevin as Minister of Labour, I could not make out, neither could Braine.
Nobody else had complained and I refused point blank either to acknowledge that I had committed any offence, or that I would cease drawing water; contrary to many people's views, I had always thought Bevin was rather stupid and this, outside his own speciality – labour – and a later experience I had of his ham-fistedness when he was Foreign Minister, only confirmed my opinion.
Security was a big problem in view of the highly secret nature of our work and all had to sign the Official Secrets Act and carry a pass; some of us were issued with RAF passes to enable us to enter RAF stations and use the mess etc. At the beginning of the war, when Russia was neutral and had signed a non-aggression treaty with the Nazis, communists were very suspect. My socialist view were well known as I had been chairman of the S.E. Essex Area Left Book Club and had long been a strong advocate of resistance to Hitler.
Although during this period I had worked with opponents of Hitler and Mussolini running from Communists to the future Minister of Aircraft Production, Sir Stafford Cripps. I had opposed tooth and nail the Party line of "Peace" pursued by the Communists during the phoney war, and assumed that my own credentials as far as the war effort was concerned, fully satisfied Intelligence! We had a fair number of Communist Party members both on the shop floor and in the laboratories, and the "Cell" held regular meetings at a local pub.
As with most Communists, they only half heartedly followed the party line at that time, which was to make peace with Germany, but as soon as Germany invaded Russia, they were second to none in their drive for production. Nevertheless, the police kept a strict watch on their movements and meetings, which were reported to me by Air Intelligence. We also had a few members of Mosley's British Union of Fascists drafted to us by the Ministry of Labour, but they were quickly eliminated by Air Intelligence. After a ring fence was erected round the works site. We felt secure against unauthorised penetration at least.
Shortly afterwards, there was a general security alarm in the South West when a member of the Security Services joined a crowd of workers at an Aircraft Works while they were crossing the road from the factory to the Canteen. He got into the canteen, had lunch with some workers, and started discussion on technical matters of Aircraft Construction without arousing any suspicion.
During the flap this caused, an attractive young lady in RAF uniform called at our watchman's office and asked for the manager. I was busy, but asked the personnel manager to see her, it seemed she was on leave in the town and being a professional singer and entertainer, offered to give a lunch time concert in the canteen. I agreed, and she gave quite a good show the next day.
Squadron Leader Laws, who was our Air Intelligence liaison officer, rolled up a few days later from their headquarters in Blenheim Palace and passed me the MAAFs report. She had presented no special pass, had "placed" bombs in the lavatory, canteen kitchen and time office without let or hindrance (the "bomb" was a chalk mark in code). In present day parlance, I had "egg on my face"; I had been boasting of our security system to Laws only a week or so before.
Editors note:
It is now widely acknowledged that throughout the war, Mi6 had embedded agents working both at Cowbridge and WDU on the lookout for saboteurs and fifth columnists. There is anecdotal evidence of workers leaving suddenly for no apparent reason, sometimes after expressing anti establishment sentiments. As will become evident later, nobody was immune from this watch.
A lot of the panic security measures taken at periods of stress were, even at that time, ludicrous. Viewed at a distance of 30 years, they were lunatic. The interval between invasion of Holland, Belgium and France and the Battle of Britain was the real panic time. Apart from sensible actions such as removing road signs and preparing coastal defences, albeit often with ill-equipped Home Guards armed with shot guns and pikes, there was a great deal of stupid "flap", much of it initiated by superannuated first world war Colonel types who could think of nothing better to do but arrest all foreigners of so-called enemy nationality in which they were including people who were fighting Hitler when most of these "saviours" were appeasing him; many had been in concentration camps. Some of these retired veteran types were pressed into service to deal with "key" factory security.
I received a telephone call from Commander Stephen King Hall who was in charge of the precautions against enemy occupation of key factories, saying he was sending down his deputy to give us our instructions. A retired naval Commander duly arrived with a list of questions and instructions; the first was to ask which of our personnel had charge of the files of secret correspondence and had information of a secret nature which might be released under "pressure". The answer was: "my very attractive Secretary and myself". Well, said our visitor, "both of you must, on receipt of the invasion warning, grab your files and take to the Welsh Hills!" I still get my leg pulled about that one!
He also instructed me that all press tools and jigs which could give dimensional information had, on the invasion signal, to be dissolved in a bath of acid. Some of these were solid steel weighing up to a hundred-weight, but nevertheless, that was the instruction, as they could not be burned like the technical drawings.
A week later, a naval lorry arrived with three or four ceramic vats a few carboys of acid! – all of which came in useful later in our metal treatment department. One of our chemists calculated that it would take two months to dissolve a heavy tool by the method specified! This security officer also provided me with an aircraft-type Browning machine gun and ten more sick guns donated from the USA; these at least came in useful, and were returned at the end of the war.
