A MINISTER appeared to pour cold water on a campaign to recognise forgotten female heroes of the Second World War today (Tuesday, March 26).

Pressure is growing for a badge to be awarded to tens of thousands of surviving munitions workers, including the ‘Aycliffe Angels’ from the North-East.

Around 17,000 women helped win the 1939-45 conflict by working in dangerous jobs at Aycliffe's Royal Ordnance Factory, in County Durham.

They earned the scorn of British traitor William Joyce, who gave them their name during wartime Nazi radio broadcasts mocking their efforts.

Yesterday, an all-party group of MPs – set up to campaign for recognition of munitions workers – said it had been contacted by “people from all over the world”.

In recent years, the Bevin boys - young men conscripted to work in wartime coal mines - and the land girls - women farm workers, who replaced men away at war - have both been honoured.

During a Commons debate, Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson – whose grandmother, Isabella Woods, was an 'Aycliffe Angel' - told MPs of the “terrible situations” they faced.

Quoting an interview that Dorothy Addison gave to The Northern Echo, Mr Wilson told MPs: “Our job was to weigh cordite, put it into linen bags and sew gunpowder on top.

“This was put into ‘25-pounder shells’ and the next block had to put the detonator on top! I remember one girl in the next block getting her hair in a machine and being scalped. She died.

“German bombers often came over and all the lights had to be out. The siren went and we all had to go into the shelters. The sky was lit up with hundreds of ‘chandeliers’ - our name for bombs.”

Mr Wilson concluded: “That is what they had to put up with - day in and day out for the period of the war.”

A campaign will be launched, next month, to raise £100,000 for a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, which Mr Wilson backed.

In reply, business minister Matthew Hancock said he would “consider the points that have been made in the debate”.

And Michael Fallon, a fellow Conservative minister in the same department, will meet with the all-party group on April 23, to discuss its campaign.

But, Mr Hancock warned: “The lack of records and the difficulties in verifying entitlement raise practical questions about how to recognise formally the contribution of individual civilian workers.”

However, Mr Wilson pledged the campaign would continue to recognise the 'Aycliffe Angels', saying: “That worked for the Bevin Boys.”