How wartime changed the workforce - and the parties that greeted its end

Eighty years since VE Day, we look back at the Second World War and its effect on the Home Front

- By DAVID COOPER Bugle correspondent

ACCORDING to the British Archive in Chiswick, London, 950,000 British women worked in munitions factories during the Second World War making components for weapons and assembling shells and bombs in factories, when in their pre-war employment they would have been making domestic household items such as ironing boards, pots and pans and accessories for cycles and motorcycles.

Clearly, they were the unsung heroes of World War Two, working tirelessly behind the scenes to maintain supplies to our troops across Europe.

Women entered the workforce in large numbers to keep the factories going after the majority of men of fighting age had joined the armed forces. The increased economic activity and jobs kept the Black Country afloat, working from dawn to long past dusk, our women folk turning out vital munitions, despite the day-to-day risk of handling highly explosive materials and the possibility of enemy air raids specifically targeted at the innumerable munitions factories.

One example of a Black Country firm turned over to the war machine was the Villiers motorcycle manufacturer, which was charged with a War Office contract that demanded no less than 10 million shell fuses. They were assembled by women workers during the global conflict from their factory in Marston Road, Wolverhampton.