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A Labour MP whose great-gran worked in the world’s biggest cordite plant today backs a campaign to honour the “munitions’ girls” who built the bombs which saved Britain.

Former frontbencher Stephen Doughty revealed his great-grandmother Hannah Marsh was one of about 12,000 women stationed at HM Factory Gretna during the First World War.

Staff at the site mixed toxic materials to make cordite in a dangerous mission to help manufacture shells for the frontline.

But Hannah’s wartime job was cloaked in secrecy - and the family only discovered her role two years ago.

“We had a photo of her on her own on the walls of my parents’ house for years in a cloth uniform and cap and a little metal badge saying ‘on war service’, but had no idea where or what she’d done. Even though she lived till she was 85 - she died in 1970 - she kept it a secret all her life,” said Mr Doughty.

“We discovered the full story when a close relative found a similar picture when going through his late mother possessions - it turns out her mother worked in the same factory.”

That woman was Hannah’s sister, Edith Alice McVay.

The Doughty family investigated further and spoke to a Cumbrian historian after noticing the picture was taken by a Carlisle photographer.

The researcher identified their uniforms and declared they had worked at the Gretna plant.

(Image: Mirrorpix)

“They had both worked previously in the cotton mills in Lancashire and it’s likely they were ideal candidates to work in the munitions factories, having worked with cotton which was now being mixed into nitroglycerine to make the cordite for shells and bullets,” said Mr Doughty.

“Many women were made ill or had their skin turn yellow mixing the chemicals.

“At the time they were working there, Hannah’s husband - my great-grandfather - was fighting in the trenches on the Western Front with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers where he was gassed and traumatised.

“My mum remembers Hannah saying, ‘he was never the same again’.”

Mr Doughty decided to tell Hannah’s story as he backed fellow MP Ruth Smeeth’s battle for a permanent tribute to the munitions’ workers of both World Wars.

Ms Smeeth believes that while veterans of Britain’s various military campaigns have rightly been recognised over the decades, credit for some of those in less well-known roles has been harder to find.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

About 1.5 million women worked in the factories producing shells and bullets, with men battling on the frontline.

Ms Smeeth wants a bronze statute to stand at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, at an estimated cost of £250,000, and has launched a fundraising campaign.

Mr Doughty said: “It’s absolutely brilliant that there is a campaign to see these amazing women properly recognised.”