“I was quite proud of myself”: 99-year-old Woman of Steel looks back on her time in Sheffield

Gladys Eyre, 99, worked at Brown Bayley Steels as a crane driver in World War II, between the ages of 16 and 22, alongside her mum and dad.

She grew up in Shiregreen as one of seven siblings. In 1990, she moved out of Sheffield to be closer to her own children who had moved to the south. She now lives with her daughter, Caroline Eyre, in Kent.

Gladys said: “I’m bragging, but they did say to me I was the quickest to pick up and use the crane. I was quite proud of myself.”

“One day, the people below put the chains around the metal. When the man asked me to pull it up, his finger was in the chain, and it pulled his finger out. I felt terrible! But he knew it wasn’t my fault. He bought me a big block of chocolate the next day, which were hard to find then, to tell me it was alright.”

There were only a few people driving cranes in the factory, including Gladys and her mum, and she got along well with the people working other jobs.

Gladys said: “The men there were lovely. I got on well with them. My dad worked there as a lorry driver, and he was 6’2”, so they had to be on their best behaviour. They were warned, ‘Don't swear in front of my daughter!’” 

Gladys moved in with Caroline four years ago, before the lockdowns, as she was starting to struggle living alone. Last year, she was diagnosed with dementia.

Caroline said: “It’s good for her to talk through the war stories. It’s all we’ve heard all our lives!

“She always talks about the time in the factory with real fondness, as though it was a really important family time. She misses Sheffield, but once her four children left in the 70’s and 80’s, she just wanted to be nearer to us. But she loves Sheffield.

“She is so easy-going and never has any demands. We are blessed.”

With the occasional prompt from Caroline, Gladys can still remember some of her stories and routines in detail.

“One time, I was with my brother Willis. We went up a hill and the sirens went, and we had to jump in the first air raid shelter we saw which was at the top of the garden. We got in and it was full of water,” she laughs. “We were in there for 20 minutes and had to walk home soaking wet.”

“And, I remember I used to set the other women’s hair for them to go out on a Saturday night. I used to wet their hair and curl it on the Friday, and they could just comb it out on the Saturday. I used to go to the pictures a lot instead because dancing weren’t my kind of thing.”

Gladys has also been the recipient of a Woman of Steel medal, but unfortunately missed out on the ceremony at Sheffield Town Hall in 2016 as she and her family were unaware it was happening.

“We presented it to her as a family instead,” said Caroline. “We hire a big house each year so the family, 28 of us, can go and spend the week before Christmas together, and we did a kind of presentation to her then.”

Caroline, now 59, lost her dad, Thomas Frederick Eyre, when she was just 9 years old. He was aged 50 when he died and had been married to Gladys for over 25 years.

“Mum had a friend who introduced her to his friend, Thomas, on the day of his dad’s funeral. So she met her husband on the day of his dad's funeral,” said Caroline.

“She always said he looked very sad and very smart. And he always said that meeting her cheered him up and made him feel better.”

Gladys lost one of her four children, Tommy, who was named after her husband, in 2001. Her other son, Simon, lives in London, and her other daughter, Jane, lives in Dorset.

Caroline said: “So yes, that makes my sister’s name Jane Eyre. That must have been dad’s idea.”

Gladys has eight great-grandchildren, the youngest of whom is just six months old. Her 100th birthday will be on January 10, 2024.