The girls tell me I am a green party person. I think it's a good thing. The earth is where we all stay and really, we do not look after it enough. I fear for my grand kids. They’re 8 and 11. Will there be anything left for there lives after we’re gone? I guess I just love everything and it's wonderful to be here and witness it all.

I was fifteen when my parents moved house, onto a new estate. We had a back/front door with huge gardens, and when I looked upstairs and saw the bathroom, I was totally amazed and thought this was heaven. I was used to a bath in the living room, so this was a dream to me.

About six months later, buildings were started across the road from our house and it was there I met a boy. He spoke to me on the way home from work. I didn’t know his name but he told me he was a carpenter/joiner. He could probably tell where I worked because of the smell and the white overalls.

My hair was in rollers most days, with a white turban on and the fringe hanging out. I didn’t dare let my mam see me talking to a boy or I would be in real trouble, so I would walk my dog, Chum, where I was out of sight to talk to the boy. I didn’t want to go out with him. I enjoyed my pals, and I had to do three nights a week - it was the rule in our house.

I lost my friend Margaret when she went to live on another estate though we met at work in lunch time, but we now had friends of our own as well. I would love going to the cinema and roller-skating with my pals. Also, dancing in the Mecca in the Town on Saturdays. Jimmy Saville, was the disc jockey then.

Lunch times at work we all went to the café under the arches for chips and coke. My friend, Christine knew these older Maltese boys. I liked the older one, called Joseph, and she liked Paul. There was also a brother called Maurice - Joseph’s brother - oh he was lovely. We had lots of fun with them. Paul would say to my pal, ‘no bed no babies’. She’d say I don’t want any, and he would laugh. We loved them all and stayed friends with them for years, even after I went out with the joiner called Tom. I think Tom was a bit jealous of Joseph, and the way we looked at each other.

When I was seventeen, my boyfriend bought a motorbike. Mam didn’t like him of course and insisted I was home by 10.00pm or she and dad would be on the doorstep waiting for me. I would get the belt, and dad would send Tom away. I was fed up with them both. It was like living in the dark ages.

At nineteen, I left home and went to my pals house; only to be dragged back, kicked home and locked in the house. I hadn’t done anything wrong; I was always too scared. We just had fun and laughs. It was then I told them I was joining the army. Boy, mam went to town on me and told me she was making me a ward of court, which meant I wouldn’t even be able to get married unless the court said so. After that, mam would start looking for finger prints in my knickers before washing them. I did rebel after that because they both made me feel sick. She couldn’t stand to see me happy. She only tolerated me. I told her she was jealous of me. She hit the roof, slapped me across the face, and said ‘what do I have to be jealous about?’

I said, ‘you can’t let me be happy can you? I’m not doing anything wrong,’ and then I said no more. Her dangerous eyes said it all.

At the factory, Christine and I met these two boys called Mick. One was bigger than the other so they were known as Big Mick and Little Mick. They were fixing the broken lifts in the factory, so I told my parents I was going to perm Christine’s hair; but instead I went into Bradford City to meet Mick. We sat on a bench and talked all night. When he looked at his watch it was 11.00pm and I knew that I was in for it again.

I feel out with my old boyfriend, Tom for six months. He bought another bike. After a while my mother made me make it up with him, and after that we went long distance on the bike and he bought me a leather jacket. I bought my own leather jeans. That the start of getting away from them.

We went all over to coffee bars, with the rockers. I had studs in my jacket back; bootlace ties with a metal beast with horns on and metal cones on the ends; tee shirts with everything on them; long hair hanging out of the crash helmet with fire flames stuck on the back with checked tape and a big tiger on the front.

Most rockers were fighters, but some were ok and we had friends. Tom used to take me to work in the morning, on his bike and I got hell from some girls, because we wear classed as the heavy mob, with bandanas around the heads, tied at the back. It could be very cold on bikes so you needed to wrap up well; but I really enjoyed it and was happy to be part of something.

It was fun at work. I worked on a talc-filling machine. I had to put a tin under the machine and put it on the conveyer belt on my right, while my left had was already filling, so both hands were working the machine. You couldn’t let the powder drop down, without something there. I had a metal v shaped hopper above me with a thick pipe going up though the ceiling to an upstairs room where Brian looked after the vats. If it came down the pipe too quick, it would overflow into my hopper, and cover me in talc. The machine was stopped for the clean up, and the girls would get me out. You couldn’t breath, but we enjoyed the time to have a laugh before starting the machine.

We always had wet sand down to clean up. It swept up so quickly. When the buzzer went for home time we would run for the buses, but no one liked sitting beside any of us. The smell of talc was very powerful and if it touched their clothes they were covered too. We used to just laugh as it meant there was more room for us to sit together.

Watson’s the factory was called, but we all called it ‘Soapy Joes.’ They also made talc for black people which was a brown colour. They made perfume for black people too, called ‘Suki.’ We didn’t like it. The smell was awful. The factory also made toothbrushes, shaving cream, hair care products, creams for the skin. It is now called ‘Leaver Brothers’.

Thousands worked there. As we came in the door, on the left was a huge glass room full of uniformed security men. There were clocking machines that covered almost one big wall. Some of the men looked after them.

We all enjoyed working there and would put toothpaste tubes down our bras and other places to swap with girls in A mill who would bring cream or perfume. Our houses were full of their products, until later when they started searching girls on the way out, so we stopped then.

It was the best days of my life because we were all happy. It makes me laugh just thinking of it, young and full of fun. Sex was rarely mentioned. Older ones did but not us.

I remember the first day I had an orgasm while I was sat on a chair putting toothpaste tubes into their small boxes. This feeling came all over my body and I couldn’t move. The girls just smiled at each other and said, ‘oh aye!’ They’d all experienced it as well, with the chairs, as they stretched over to get tubes. It happened quite often, but you learned to work with it. When we had a break, we would discuss it how it felt, then it was kept to ourselves. If you didn’t, the older girls wouldn’t leave you alone. You were never shy, though. Even though you weren’t having sex. Oh happy days.

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