I like this one from them:
https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1763104715846365555?s=19
Woman of the Day is Dorothy the welder. I can’t tell you her full name, where or when she was born or indeed anything else about her but she and her sister co-workers were vital to Britain’s war effort during WW2.
It all started because I wanted to know the name of the first RAC patrolwoman. She was Edith Hayley of Bradford in the 1960s but other than the fact that her job brought her into contact with “lots of angry men”, I couldn’t find out any more about her.
I tried the Automobile Association but as recently as 2017, it only had four patrolwomen so from there, I went looking for the first woman to qualify as a mechanic in the UK. Whoever she was, she remains invisible but the search led me to the Women’s Engineering Society website and that sent me down another journey of discovery that had nothing to do with cars and everything to do with Waterloo Bridge.
That’s right. Waterloo Bridge. Did you know that it was built mainly by women?
Although the contribution of women to the war effort in WW2 is documented, very little is known about their outstanding contribution to construction. In 1944, 25,000 women were working in the construction industry filling in labour gaps left by British men being sent to war. They were paid far less money than their male counterparts for doing the same work, of course.
Waterloo Bridge was considered of vital importance to the British Army’s transport of men and materials but in 1939, it was judged to be dilapidated and unsafe. The architect Giles Gilbert Scott (Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, the iconic red telephone box) designed a new bridge but the old one had to be dismantled and the new design built in record time. Few men were available for this important work and so the construction company Peter Lind & Co. compromised by asking for ‘green labour’ – those new to the industry. What it meant was women. It just couldn’t bring itself to say the word ‘women'.
It is thought that 65% of the construction workers responsible for building Waterloo Bridge were women. Even today, some Thames riverboat pilots call it ‘the Ladies' Bridge’ but for years, it was dismissed as an urban myth because no documentary or photographic evidence could be found. Peter Lind & Co. went out of business in the 1980s and most of its records were lost.
However, historian Professor Christine Wall found photographic evidence in the archives of The National Science and Media Museum of women demolition workers taking the old bridge down and women welders working on the new construction. A man whose father worked on the bridge came forward to say that there were 'two grades of ladies'. Most of the women wore dungarees while those in more senior roles, responsible for operating vehicles, wore all-in-one overalls similar to the ones worn by the men.
At the official opening in December 1945, Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison proclaimed: "The men who built Waterloo Bridge are fortunate men. They know that although their names may be forgotten, their work will be a pride and use to London for many generations to come."
He must have forgotten his specs. What he clearly meant to say was:
"The women and men who built Waterloo Bridge are fortunate. They know that although the men’s names may be forgotten and the women’s will never be known, their work will be a pride and use to London for many generations to come."
I’m happy to set the record straight.