My mum, the crane driver, and her sailor boyfriend

During the Second World War my mum worked as an overhead crane driver at the Helsby factory of British Insulated Cables Ltd (BIC). This merged in 1945 with Callenders Cable and Construction Co and became BICC, which eventually closed in 2002.

My mum was 18 at the start of the war and would have had to travel the eight miles from home in Runcorn every day. I'm sure that before and after the war this would have been a man's job.

My parents married at the end of 1944 prior to my dad going out to the Far East as a member of the Royal Navy.