The Petroleum Wives Club
Audio clip of an interview with Alma Byatt
By Richard Dade
In this interview Alma Byatt describes information about the Petroleum Wives Association
The photograph shows Alma with her husband William Byatt
Transcript for 'Interview with Alma Byatt':
I joined the wives club in '65 and as I said it was always from the drivers wife right through to management they were all treated the same. They had the bowling league and various other things going on for the children and lots and lots of things going on its was a good life I can't say it wasn't.
Petroleum wives did things for the children they didn't have young children running round where they could get hurt say at adult functions they must have had oh going back at one time there must have been about a 130 to 150 I suppose.
When you have got a big club like that with about 100 to 150 people you have a board don't you, you give ideas put it that way to put ideas forward they always asked the members for ideas what they wanted to do in those days I didn't go because I travelled a lot but of a lot the Americans they just wanted to see the whole of England they used to go to a lot of lovely places
I can remember even in 66 they were still going overseas to Europe. Petroleum wives are still running now but of course they haven't got the membership and even last year with just 20 members now they did a trip to Ireland. Probably with only about 8 or 10 people but they still do they follow the way they follow still as much as they can the ways of the Wives Club