BANGLES FORCHIEFS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 October 1931, Page 2

BANGLES FORCHIEFS

ENGLISHWOMAN’S QUEER JOB. WORKING IN A FOUNDRY. Mrs Mary Ann Pole is' the woman with the strangest job in England! She was found lately standing before a small furnace in the Waverley Foundry at Oldbury, Worcestershire, making bangles for the native chiefs of j West Alrica. : A plump matron, with a black straw | hat perched high on her head, she j stands there philosophically casting tlie.se trinkets without any knowledge of their significance to the wearer, it the thousands of West African natives who are proudly wearing their tinkling bangles could be brought to Oldbury to see how they are made they would, no doubt, do a war dance in the founuiy yard of Mrs Pole, who fashioned such lovely ornaments out of dirty pieces of iron. Mrs Pole is engaged in an export trade which has not been affected by the world slump. The natives of West Africa, it seems, are perpetually vying with each other for the honour of wearing more bangles, and the harder they struggle for this honour the busier is Mrs Mary Ann Pole. The bangles were made in the foundry for years before anyone working there knew what they were. Mrs Pole went on turning them out by the gross, and wondering all the time what such silly things could be used for. It was only recently she discovered what they were, when a man from West Africa walked into the foundry! and said, “Good heavens! Is this where Kaffir bangles are made?”

The bangles are, indeed, strange articles. Koughly cast of malleable iron, they are made in the shape of a horseshoe, so that African chiefs, no matter how fat they may be, can get them on their arms and legs. When they have got them on the ends are forced together. There are six bulges on each bangle, inside of which are samll iron balls that tinkle as the wearer moves his limbs. After they are cast they are nickel-plated, so that they scintillate in the African sun. Mrs Pole has no idea of the importance of her trade. She has never seen a West Afrioan chief, and she has no sympathy with people who adorn, them, selves with bits of iron. And yet she is one of the few,people in Britain eii-| gaged in a growing export trade. J