FIFTY years ago a young Margaret Heald left the classroom behind and began her first job on the assembly line at Waterfoot Mullards.

Her memories of those days are contained in a book she has penned titled Teenage Recollections.

Today we continue to tell the second half of the tale of the former student of Woodnook Secondary Modern, in Accrington, where she lived with her family and assorted greyhounds.

Margaret, she is now Mrs Wareing, left school in 1958, and followed her father, an electrician, into Mullards.

It proved to the 15-year-old to be not only a working class girls' finishing school, but also more of a holiday camp environment than a factory, and the people of the Rossendale Valley became her extended family.

She distinctly remembers her first pay packet: "The moment I arrived home, as instructed, I handed the unopened packet to my mum, who handed me back - from the princely sum of £3 7s 6d - the 7s and 6d!

"Happily my father intervened and said I should keep £1, which made me feel a lot better."

Margaret used to travel to Rossendale by bus, with her friend Eileen Hesketh, who worked in the mill at Haslingden and she got to know many of Haslingden Corporation's bus crews.

"My two favourites, however, were Harry the driver and Johnny Derbyshire the conductor, because sometimes if I was late they would keep the bus waiting an extra minute to let me catch it!"

Margaret remembers Christmas when the girls played their favourite records over the tannoy and enjoyed festive goodies, turkey sandwiches, mince pies and cups of tea, but especially one particular year, when the girls finished early and headed for the Moulders Arms.

"Over the years we had become known as Mullards' angels because of our white overalls, but that day, after a conga round Waterfoot, then up the stairs of the bus and back down again, I rather suspect angels' was not the word used for us!"

During her time there, Tom Fort was the resident electrician at Waterfoot Mullards and her father was contracted to work alongside him to install new trunking.

Whenever her dad swung from one crossbar to another, on the overhead lights gantry, the workforce would burst into song with their rendition of The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze'.

Indeed, every person and every incident had a song associated with it. Tom Fort's Body Lies A-mouldering in the Grave' was an obvious one, while chargehand Mr Worsley was serenaded with Davy Crocket', Richard from maintenance got Open the Door, Richard', Mr Iveson, the foreman, had Ronnie, the red-nosed foreman'.Visitors wearing headgear were greeted with Where Did You Get That Hat?' and Mr Van Dyke, one of the managers from Holland, was naturally serenaded with Tulips from Amsterdam'.

Do you remember the days when girls getting married were paraded not only round the factory, but during the midday break round the streets of Waterfoot,in fancy dress?

As Margaret's teenage years came to an end by the spring of 1962, she began dating her first serious boyfriend.

"Only Elvis Presley had ever managed to make my heart flutter, but the moment I saw John Bowker walk on the factory floor, my heart began turning somersaults. I was totally captivated - but that is another story."