Peter Hedley on Shipbuilding

One thing I do remember is that the whistle used to blow, and we had to be in and clocked in within three minutes, otherwise you lost a quarter of an hour on your card.

I was lucky enough to be able to walk from home in Beckford Road, down to John Samuel White and even go back for lunch and come back down again and then return at five o’clock in the evening.

One thing I do remember is that the whistle used to blow, and we had to be in and clocked in within three minutes, otherwise you lost a quarter of an hour on your card. I was lucky enough to be able to walk from home in Beckford Road, down to John Samuel White and even go back for lunch and come back down again and then return at five o’clock in the evening.

Um, I do wonder how we would have got on this day and age with the trouble that we’ve had with the Floating Bridge because the Floating Bridge was always right there on the whistle to take men from West Cowes to East Cowes and East Cowes to West Cowes right, and they worked to the whistle, so there would have been a lot of trouble with men losing time with this particular unfortunate Floating Bridge that we have there at the moment.