Reprint of East Anglian Daily Times
Date unknown

Kathleen Willingham


BUT BRITISH RAILWAYS SAY SHE'S GOT ONLY A PART-TIME JOB

The level-crossing gate has to be worked 48 times a day. Slightly built - Mrs Kathleen Willingham is shown pulling a signal lever. It`s a tough job, equal to pulling a hundredweight and Mrs Willingham does this it at least 144 times a day.
Then she swings the large level crossing gates - she does that 48 times a day.
From six in the morning until 10.30 at night
"I can`t manage of six and a half hours sleep a night "she said
So the 36 year old mother of four, is fighting British Rail to get her 91 hours reduced.
The hard working little woman who is only 5ft 2" and weighs just 8st 7lbs.

Kathleen, said "We women level crossing keepers are the Cinderellas of the railways, but we are forgotten"

SHOPPING
There are at least 24 trains a day except on a Sunday.
Even on her weekly day off, her rest day "Kathleen has be to be on duty from 6am until 10.15 am. when her relief man arrives.
Another man takes over in the afternoon because men are allowed to work only an eight- hour shift
'No such rules apply to women" said Mrs Willingham

Each week she is allowed four hours off for her weekly shopping.
Her pay is just £4 10.10d after deductions for income tax, insurance and the rent for her railway cottage.
Why does she do it ?
"We needed a house, my husband and I were desperate. We took this job 18 months ago as a last resort."

An Eastern Region spokesman said, "The Keeper knew what the conditions were when she took the job".
Mrs Willingham, he said, "was able to do things about the house between trains and so she was considered to be only working part time"

Courtesy of David Underwood for the press cutting

Femail Crossing Keepers known officially known as Gatewomen

By July 1914, there were 413 SignalWomen and Gatewomen employed nationally.

By 1950 women had been working as crossing keepers for a century.
Typically, they worked between eight and 12 hours a day, six days a week, for 27s, while men performing identical work received 80s for a 48-hour week. Women were tired of being told that this inequality was due to agreements made between the company and the National Union of Railway Men
One, Mrs Duerden, observed that is was 'high time the Union got some of these obsolete agreements were altered.`
Managers were reluctant to grant women any time off: according to the companies, a day's work for a female crossing keeper consisted of 24 hours, yet a day's leave consisted of providing a stand-in for just eight hours! During 1950 there were 1,285 male and 1,591 female crossing keepers, so the usual excuse - that women were a tiny minority and therefore of no significance - was inapplicable. It is possible that the NUR thought women crossing keepers a lost cause, and one that could jeopardise the men's case. However, it continued to accept the women's subscriptions.
Despite being in the majority, gatewomen seem to have been invisible to some. One railwayman complained of 'scandalous conditions, such as inhuman hours of work, miserable wages and an utter lack of facilities for recreation' which were endured by 'heroic hard-working crossing keepers' who gave day and night selfless services which are safeguarding the lives of millions of passengers, not to mention the millions of tons of goods vital to the war efforts'.

The men's campaign for more wages bore fruit in 1947 when rates of pay for gatemen were raised to between 76s and 95s (inclusive of 25s 6d war wage). while the highest-graded woman
earned a mere 53s (295 plus 24s war wage). Men also won 10s 6d per week compensation
for being excluded from the 48 hour week, which had been conceded to all other male
grades. Nothing was offered to women.

Gatewomen Duerden wrote to The Times
We are classified as 'Railway Workers' but when improvements are made we find
another well-worn expression applies to us: "This concession is not granted to
female crossing keepers"
Marriage to a railwayman was not a very attractive proposition for a single
gatewoman, for she would immediately suffer a pay cut of 8s to 10s." The practice of
paying a railwayman's wife lower wages was abolished after Nationalisation in 1948 and, at the same time, all gatewomen were awarded a 4s rise.
Female crossing keepers continued to suffer disparity in uniform provision: men were
issued a cap, jacket and vest annually, trousers every six months and a coat every three years.
Women received no uniform, but BR conceded that they could have an overcoat
every four years.
By 1956, crossing keepers' pay was 140s to 144s for men and 71s to 90s for women.
owing to union agreements in the 1950s, railwaymen were restricted by law to a 12 hour day , while women residential crossing keepers could work 16 hours or more.
Furthermore, men were granted an eight-hour period off duty each week, while women
were granted only four hours' 'shopping leave'.
When one femail crossing keeper requested an extra hour off-duty for Christmas shopping she found her pay docked a quarter day."

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Courtesy of Helena Wojtczak, author of "Railwaywomen"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Railwaywomen-Exploitation-Betrayal-Triumph-Workplace/dp/1904109047

Her special areas of interest and expertise include the British women's suffrage movement, nineteenth century feminism, railway labour history, and the Victorian working classes. In 1995-97 she compiled a unique audio-taped oral history of women war-workers, and was consultant historian to the National Railway Museum, helping to create a major exhibition on the history of railway workers.