Devil's Porridge

from Little Crosses by Museleon

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80% of munitions workers were women. Their shifts were long and the working conditions were very dangerous. Over 200 munitions workers were killed during the war. Others suffered horribly with illness caused by the processes used to make munitions, the most famous being the Canary Girls whose skin was stained yellow by the chemicals they used.

This track was inspired by a leaflet given to me about The Devil's Porridge Museum - www.devilsporridge.org.uk

" After the Times newspaper reported the significant lack of ammunition for British soldiers in France in May 1915, the Government decided something needed to be done about the ‘Shell Crisis’. As a result, Lloyd George became the Minister of Munitions and embarked on his greatest project, HM Factory Gretna, the largest munitions factory in the world on the quiet Anglo-Scottish Border.
Almost 12,000 females, predominantly young, women had travelled from across Britain to do their bit for the war effort at Gretna. They were employed to manage the process from mixing the highly volatile ‘devil’s porridge’ paste through to producing the finished cordite propellant, destined for the shell-filling factories. Sherlock Holmes author, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle coined the phrase ‘the Devil’s Porridge’ after visiting as a War Correspondent and witnessing the Gretna Girls mixing this dangerous mixture."
www.devilsporridge.org.uk

credits

from Little Crosses, released November 18, 2018
Written, recorded and produced by Museleon

00602 women crowd 1.wav - RobinHood76 - Licensed under Attribution Non Commercial - freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/63681/

Sample of "If You were the Only Girl in the World" by Violet Lorraine and George Robey (1916) courtesy of FirstWorldWar.com - firstworldwar.com

Artwork based on a woman working in a wartime factory 1914 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woma…tory,_1914.jpg

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Museleon UK

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Headphone music where every sound has a meaning,
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Immersive sonic worlds and idiosyncratic electronic.

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