The Woolwich Arsenal Bike
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The Tropenas Steel Converter at Woolwich Arsenal",
William Hyde

The works management were paranoid about fire and the associated risks, and it was a criminal offence to be in the arsenal with cigarettes, matches or snuff in your possession. Quite what ignition could be gained from snuff escapes me, but it could be because smokers weren’t allowed their pleasure, so snuff was banned to even things up. When you see the illustration above, it makes you wonder!

Whenever an air raid warning sounded, because of the awesome danger they were in, the workers were supposed to proceed immediately to the shelters, and await the ‘all-clear’. However this was not always the case as a contemporary account here shows:-

“We were having air raids on and off, but did not go to the shelter when the warning went, instead carried on working until the shop's spotter decided when the planes were near enough to be dangerous.”

 And so some of the workers were quite happy to take risks, and Uncle Bill belonged with these brave or foolish people. Amongst many other activities, he made spare parts for bikes during the raids, when the foreman was in the shelter, hiding them quickly when the ‘all-clear’ sounded. He even made complete bikes, as did some of the others.

To liberate these items from the works meant that a whole bike was easy, you simply walked to work, and rode a bike out at the end of the shift, usually a night shift, when the bike didn’t look so newly manufactured.

The Arsenal damaged in 'The Blitz'!

Spare parts however were a different thing altogether, and Uncle Bill, with his mates would wait until a raid was in full swing, and dodging the bombs and shrapnel, would head out of the unguarded gates, and stash his loot about a mile away in some hide that he had found. He would then get back into the arsenal before the raid ended, make for the shelter, and then return to work after the ‘all-clear’. Finally, on his way home at the end of his shift, he would recover his spares.

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