VN009 Beti Davies, Woollen Factory, Glyn Ceiriog

Beti worked in the Wool Factory in Glyn Ceiriog straight from school at 14. She also kept house for her father after her mother died shortly before this. She started on the bobbins then moved on to make the material for good quality wool coats that were fashionable at the time. She had a chance to buy one of these coats: “One was camel, and a sort of duck egg blue, oh, a lovely colour, and we had the chance to buy a coat for five pounds. They kept five shillings a week out of our wages until we'd paid the five pounds. And someone told me that those coats were worth twenty five pounds in the shops.” Her sister, Marion, worked there too. Beti left around the time the factory closed and she went to work for the Forestry Commission. She married four years later and had a son, after which she didn't return to work. She also looked after her father until he died, after which she did some part time cleaning work.