My Father, Arthur Sparling, was a foreman at Shaftmoor Lane during the war. I believe he was in charge of a large number of women and they made those round swinging gun turrets that fitted under the bombers.
The work was very hard and demanding, and eventually he had a nervous breakdown and was never the same man again.
On Sunday mornings, when the factory was quite, he would take me with him and let me sit in one of the gun turrets, and I would press the left and right foot pedals to make it swing round. Afterwards, we would go to Tyseley Working Men’s Club for a game of snooker.
He did tell me of one incident when one of the girls had not put on her protective hair net, her hair caught in a machine and it was all ripped of.