The manufacturers had to acquiesce in these changes but Fred Inman told me that some of the die-hards were looking forward to the end of the war when they could go back to pre-war conditions and 'cut the workers down to size'. They also didn't like the fact that they were governed by the Cotton Control Board even though in many ways this was good for trade because they had contracts at guaranteed prices and full time working. Paradoxically, the war was turning out to be a good thing all round in terms of making a living, both the weavers and the workers in the other essential industries had no problems with short time.
Because of food controls and rationing the quality and fairness of distribution was improved and whilst prices rose they were reasonable. The astounding fact is that due to the work of men like Jack Drummond, an expert on nutrition at the Ministry of Food, the health of the vast majority of people was better at the end of the war than at the beginning. The clinics for mothers and children distributed free orange juice, cod liver oil and advice and were a major contribution. There was also the benefit for women who were recruited for work in the factories and gained skills and confidence they would never have attained if it hadn't been for the war. There was an apocryphal story of the tackler in the mill who was boasting of the precision needed to tune a loom and his wife who was working at Rolls told him that was nothing, she was working to a thousandth of an inch! True or not, this demonstrated an important point.
In 1945 we saw Victory in Europe and eventually over Japan. Everything was about to change again but nobody knew how it would affect them.
Bancroft Shed ran all through the war as a weaving shed.