CANADIAN researchers investigating the war efforts of the region's women say their findings could help modern workers.

The academics are carrying out a study on the Aycliffe Angels, a name given to workers at munitions works, Royal Ordnance Factory 59.

About 17,000 workers were employed at the factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, between 1941 and 1945.

The largely female workforce did highly dangerous work filling bullets and bombs, and assembling detonators.

There were a number of serious and fatal explosions, with eight women being killed in one blast, but few official records exist because of the secrecy surrounding the factory.

Nick Turner, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, said: "I first heard about the Aycliffe Angels when I came across some research that had been done by Durham University.

"We are interested in how people in dangerous circumstances doing dangerous jobs are able to cope and even thrive, often forming close relationships as they do.

"The work the Angels did had quite a lot of significance on modern-day workers and our culture of health and safety, especially those that do dangerous and stressful jobs today."

Graduate researcher Sean Tucker said: "It is also important to document the work they did.

"They were some of the first women to work in factories in what was previously a male-dominated environment and it is just great to record their experiences."

The Aycliffe Angels were given their name by Lord Haw Haw, a traitor who worked for the Germans making English propaganda broadcast by radio.

In one broadcast, he dubbed the workers the little angels of Aycliffe.

Former Aycliffe Angel Vera Barber has been helping with the project.

She said: "It was wonderful being involved. I took a lot of calls from Angels themselves, but I took a few calls from men as well.

"Some of them were messengers who were 14 when they worked in the factory and some of them were sons whose mothers had worked there when they were alive who just wanted to know more about it."

Mr Tucker and Mr Turner will continue their research in the UK this spring.

Any former Angels who would like to contribute are asked to call Mrs Barber on 01388-604415.