Everything was ink and it was the old-fashioned pen
Geoff
Norma just had a normal school education and then at the end of it started looking for a job and her mother saw an advert in the Chronicle for a draftswoman. Norma didn’t know what the job was or anything about it and she went along, and she got the job. What the shipyard was trying to do was introduce woman into the drawing office.
The girls came in straight from school, got the same money as the lads, this was 1960-61. There was about 85 draftsmen, various ages going straight from school right up to retirement age in three large open plan offices. We were on the top floor of a six-storey building at Walker naval yard which is Vickers Armstrongs. Norma just had to come down from Byker to go to work.
It was typical office hours, about quarter to 9 until about half past 5, five days a week. When you go and start you go in what’s called the nursery which is a separate area where you learn how to draw, it’s a five year apprenticeship. Norma came in with about 4 or 5 other girls. You were given plans to draw. Everything was ink and it was the old-fashioned pen, the old nibs for printing.
A Case of drawing instruments
And what you had to do when you first joined, you paid so much a week for a set of instruments to draw with which they bought for you and you had to pay, probably out of your wages, £2 a week.
Norma
Three pounds five and tuppence
Geoff
They were yours eventually, you paid them off.
Norma
I’ve still got them.
Interviewer
Norma has some examples here of tricks played on them. Was that just the women?
Geoff
We played tricks on everybody. I remember, they were called chargehands in charge of a ship and they had so many draughtsmen working for them and there was an office cat and they put the office cat in this drawer and when he sat down and pulled the drawer, the cat wasn’t happy and he wasn’t happy.
Norma
Oh, they were awful, they were wicked honestly, it was good fun mind, I really enjoyed it.
Geoff
Norma stayed right until the bitter end because the shipyards were closing, and the naval yard was taken over by Swan Hunters and I think at the finish out of 80 odd draftsmen there might only have been half a dozen left.
Norma
There was only a few just clearing up.
We had about 5 of us women were employed and one, Mary, she was a very good draftswoman, and she married one of the fellas and they were both charge hands.
Geoff
We married because we met in the shipyards, they married. I think we were the only drafts people that married. But also, on this top floor there were lady tracers which were in a separate room…
Norma
They married some draftsmen as well.
Geoff
There was a lot of marriages going on like that. How many tracers would there be, twenty, thirty?
Norma
Well I can just think of going into the office, there were stacks.
Geoff
Norma did her 5 years apprenticeship and that’s when you start earning some money but whilst you’re an apprentice you earn very little. When you were 21 you got your full money which was very good, the same as a man.
Norma
The union said, that’s it, you pay them what everyone else gets.
Geoff
The only thing that Norma couldn’t do because she was a girl was, she couldn’t go and do six months training down in the yards, they wouldn’t allow that, so she never got to experience the working practices in the yard. There was women worked in the shipyards, they were cleaners on the ships, I don’t think they had a good time of it but they were tough.
Norma
Yes, but they were good, I enjoyed their company
Geoff
They could give whatever was coming, back. But it was sad, we’d just moved down to Leeds to live and work and we just heard they’d just pulled this office block, huge office block, [down].
Norma
Me mam phoned me up, “Oh Norma, Norma, they’re going to close down the building and everything I coming down. So, if you want to take photographs, get yourselves up.”
Geoff
All was left was three concrete steps.
Norma
I know. Oh, there was a big lump in me throat.
Geoff
It was sad, that. The only thing that’s left, apart from these three steps is a large crane, hammerhead crane it’s called.
We got about an hour for lunch and we just played cards. But when I started going out with Norma, we went across to my car, didn’t we, and I remember doing a proggy-mat.
Norma
Yes, well we were engaged then. I’d forgotten about that. We’ve still got them.
Geoff
People don’t appreciate how much freedom they have now to what you had then. You had to clock in, and if you were late it was recorded, and if you were late too often, you know.
Norma
And you were allowed three minutes to be late I think, and you used to pick me up at home and bring me to work, so I was always in on time, but that clock always went round, ping.
Interviewer
Prior to starting to get lifts from Geoff, how did you get to work?
Norma
Trolley bus. It came round the top and down and I got off and walked to the shipyard.
I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the work as well where you start off with this clean sheet of paper and you get all the edges sorted out and then you start and you see things, it was good.
Norma and Geoff were interviewed in 2025 as part of the Women in Shipbuilding Project.