IT was a small advert, tucked away in the Sits Vac page of the Evening Times, sandwiched between ads for a sales lady and a secretary/shorthand typist. Schweppes Ltd, it said, “require women for factory work, excellent wages and working conditions.”
Four days later, some 500 women, some of them with young children, queued outside the factory in Killearn Street, Possilpark for several hours. As was routinely the case, there were considerably more applicants than there were vacancies. “We are looking for only about 12 girls,” said the branch production manager, T.J. Mayrick. Told about the queue that was building up outside, an assistant in the factory said: “It is early yet. There will probably be more before the interview period - 2 to 4pm - is over.”
The queue stretched round the corner into neighbouring Carbeth Street, Housewives watched from their homes as the crowd gathered and as women hurried from all directions to join it. The lucky 12 would each receive a basic pay of about £5 per week plus bonuses. Their qualifications needed to include “intelligence and personal cleanliness.”
Despite the daunting length of the queue and the knowledge that they would be fortunate indeed to get one of the 12 jobs, the women photographed above seemed upbeat, some even managing a cheery wave for the Evening Times photographer.
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