GROUP photographs depicting the heroic Aycliffe Angels munitions workers have been donated to The Northern Echo for the benefit of the public.

The family of Ruth Barker, who worked with wages in the stores at the County Durham factory, want former Angels and their families to enjoy the pictures.

More than 14,000 people - mostly women - worked at the giant munitions factory, close to Aycliffe Village, at the height of the war.

Their dedication won them fame well beyond County Durham. Indeed, it was the Nazi traitor Lord Haw-Haw who gave them their name in his threatening message: "The little Angels of Aycliffe won't get away with it."

Mrs Barker's first husband, Clifford Wykes, a member of the Sherwood Foresters tank regiment based in the North-East at the time, was killed during the Second World War.

And in November 2001, she died, aged 80, following a heart attack. Her second husband and widower, Bill Shield, died two months later.

Following her death, Mrs Barker's goddaughter sent photographs to her nephew, Brian Horner, and his family, in her home town of Shildon, County Durham.

The photographs, some of them signed on the backs or inside covers by the Angels, were taken by W Richardson of Bondgate Studio, Darlington, and SE Taylor, also of Bondgate.

They show the workers from the Royal Ordnance Factory, Aycliffe, process tools office in 1941, as well as the stores branch and cost department, dated 1941 to 1945.

Mr Horner, his wife, Christine, and daughter Vivienne, decided to give the photographs to The Northern Echo, as they did not feature Mrs Barker and they felt others would enjoy seeing them.

Mrs Barker met Mr Shield during her time at Aycliffe, when he was an accountant who visited the factory. They married in 1955 and then left the region, moving to Birmingham and then on to India, where Mr Shield set up a Lucas car components plant.

They returned to England in 1967 and spent the rest of their lives in Surrey.