The airport, I can remember the airport from when I first came to Cardiff, I came in 1944. During that year I was a dispatch rider for the RAF and I was taken ill. My main headquarters were in Cardiff but I worked mainly in London. I came to Cardiff on leave and was taken ill. They came in the night to pick me up and took me to Cardiff airport. I didn't know it existed then, They had made one of the huts into a hospital and that is where I was for two nights and then went to St: Athens. I was off for two months. Then I went back to London and was offered a class B discharge to get out of the RAF. So I left and came back to Cardiff to settle down. They offered me a job for �9 a week and out of that they took �4.20 stoppages, so you didn't end up with much. I was a married man by then with one kiddie and another one coming. The job didn't last long- it was making tiled fireplaces. I worked on the parade in Cardiff, If you look towards the end of the Parade there is a big car park and before that was built there was a little factory and that is were I worked when I first came to Cardiff. I was looking for other work from there and eventually I got a job from the steelworks.
My father in law worked there and he got me an interview for a job there which I got. Splott was built for the steelworks and also the docks, for the exporting of coal and stuff. There was shift work in those days and everybody rode bikes [M] so you would see men going on shifts and men coming off.[sh] The night shift would be coming off as I went in. I worked in the locomotive section and you couldn't leave until your relief had come in, so if I was on nights and the other one was late getting up and came in at half past 6 instead of 6 o clock I would have to stay there until half past six. When he came in I would swear at him and kick him a few times! If somebody didn't come in because they were sick you would have to stay on for the first 8 hours and then go home and come back in for your own night shift. They were hard employers in those days.