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A collection of interviews and photographs recorded by Women's Archive of Wales in 2013-14

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VN022 Megan Owen, James Kaylor Compacts, Caernarfon

Megan worked for twenty years in the compact factory, starting at age 15. She hadn't left school properly when she started, but a friend who'd passed a scholarship to go to grammar school didn't want to go and this friend told Megan they were looking for people in the compact factory. So the two went down, got a job, and Megan had a row off her mother afterwards. She said on the first day they went in like schoolgirls, with little white socks and pony tails, giggling and not knowing what to do. The younger girls were put together in a room and taught how to put the little round piece that held the powder into the compacts and then the satin around it. Later she was moved onto to do other jobs, like printing, putting the designs onto the compacts with paint. Megan left for 12 years to raise her daughter, and then returned to the factory and stayed until it closed , c 1984.
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James Kaylor Compact, 1950sJames Kaylor Compact, 1940sJames Kaylor Compacts, the one with writing is 1940s, the plain one 1950s and the one with flowers 1960sMegan having a go on the polishing machine, 1950s, © Dafydd Llewelyn

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