During more than 40 years in the pottery industry, Edna Moreton worked at the Burslem factories of James Macintyre, John Maddock and Wade Heath. Besides being a versatile worker who did a variety of jobs, she had a reputation for speaking her mind in down-to-earth language. Edna, now 77, told John Abberley about the potbank life she loved.
FROM my early years on the potbank, my workmates thought I wasn't well if I didn't swear a lot.

Everybody swore on potbanks, though not like they do it today. But when I went to work at Maddocks, where my husband Len was the clay manager, I had to be on my best behaviour and stop swearing.

It didn't suit me at all. In fact, it made me come out in a rash on my legs. My doctor told me it was due to the frustration of not being able to be myself. That was one reason why I decided to leave.

What made me strong-willed, I think, was being left an orphan. I was the youngest of a family of nine. My father died when I was eight and my mother followed him when I was nine.

My eldest sister took me on and although I wanted to go hairdressing she insisted that I earned money in a potbank job when I left school at 14. I started at 12 shillings a week in the clay end at Macintyres.

My sister only gave me one shilling a week pocket money, but I didn't hand over all my wages to her. I hid some in my shoe so I could go dancing, though they called you no good those days if you went dancing a lot.

At Macintyres (Washington Works) I started in sieving, which chapped your hands and there were no creams then. After two years I went pressing on piece work, making porcelain firebars for electric fires.

As part of the job you had to swing a big iron ball, which was hard work doing it all day. Once I hit my head on a press and had to go to the Haywood Hospital for stitches. But I went back to work the next morning.

We couldn't smoke on Macintyres, except in the toilets, because of the danger of fire. We had to mix paraffin and palm oil, which got on our overalls and stank a lot. This was accepted everywhere. Apart from the smoking ban, I don't remember many safety regulations.

In my opinion Macintyres sufferd badly through union rules. The union tried to stop us fetching our own boards. We were supposed to let the men bring them to us, but told them I wasn't standing round waiting when I was on piece work.

After Macintyres I went to Maddocks and learned casting and sponging, but left for the reasons I've already explained about swearing. I became a sponger at Wade Heath, where I made ice jugs, miniature whisky barrels and great big ashtrays.

I could speak my mind freely again and became a spokesman for the workers when they wanted a new price for making jugs, say 1s 8d a dozen instead of 1s 6d.

Everybody promised their support, but when we got into the office they all kept their mouths shut and left it to me. The works manager always told me afterwards to collect my cards and coppers. But I just carried on as normal the next day and nobody said anything.

When I was on Wade Heath they'd still got a bottle oven. If we were slack we went to the oven with our towels and the kiln men handed down the hot saggars, which we carried out. They wouldn't ask women to do a job like that nowadays!

Still, it was like home from home because we were allowed to smoke all day on the bench. Colonel Sir George Wade came in once and introduced me to Lady Wade as "the young lady who's always got a cigarette going and won't tell me how many she smokes."

Colonel Wade was a very, very nice man who always spoke to us. When I had an operation he told me that he'd missed me. We all called him the colonel.

I used a high chair to do my fettling and after having a couple of days off I went back and found that my chair had gone. I was told I couldn't use it any more, as the clay manager had thrown it on the shordruck. So I went out and fetched it back. And I kept it.

This clay manager was for ever coming up and helping himself to a cigarette from my packet. One day I insulted him in front of everybody and the next Monday morning I found he'd left me a box of 100. I got away with murder sometimes.

I've been back to the works since I retired and it's all machines these days. The placers don't have to carry boards on their heads. They've got a lift which brings the ware down.

I found it depressing to go back because so many jobs I remember are no longer done.