A ROTHERWAS munitions worker will feature on a BBC1 show next week which honours war heroes.

Families at War is on BBC1 from next Monday to Friday at 9.15am and focuses on stories from heroes of war, both on the battlefield and the home front.

Nancy Evans from Hereford will be on next Wednesday's episode as she returns to the factory in which she narrowly escaped death.

She celebrated her 96th birthday on October 27 and worked at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Rotherwas from 1939 to 1943.

She said about the filming: "I was taken down there but I had to think where I was because things have changed.

"There are such a lot of factories down there now. When I went through I had to memorise then where I was but when I saw the empty shell, where the train used to come in, I recognised where I was."

Nancy worked on the explosives and made 25-pounder shells, pom-poms for the navy and 3.7s.

On July 27, 1942 the factory was bombed and it was believed 17 people died.

Nancy said: "I was on the afternoon shift. They came and fetched me to go down and help.

"I tell you one thing- I am very lucky I am here today.

"It was awful after the bomb. I lost a lot of friends down there."

It is thought some 12,000 men and women worked at the factory at Rotherwas during both world wars.

Their role was vital to the war effort in producing munitions for use on land, sea and in the air.

Nancy said she enjoyed working there adding: "I really enjoyed it when we went down the canteen and were all having a good laugh. Gracie Fields came down there and Vera Lynn."

But in 1943 she collapsed during an afternoon shift- the doctor said she had TNT poisoning and acute appendicitis.

She said: "The TNT sinks into your skin.

"Your hands went yellow and your hair went yellow. He said to me you are not going back down the factory any more.

"He said if anybody was near to death, he said you were."

When she finished at the factory she began work as a bus conductress.

Chris Chappell, Herefordshire ward councillor for St Martins and Hinton, said: "She epitomises the women of the day and because of them the war was won- because of their contribution doing a serious and dangerous job."