Hannah Nobbs joined Westland as a Graduate Engineer and remembers her first day working at the Yeovil factory

It was a really busy place, probably about four thousand people on site. Coming through the main gate it was quite exciting because it’s like a whole industrial site in its own right, but the office I worked in was very small, probably about seven people but in part of what is the main engineering building. I started work the same day as another girl in the same office. Looking back it was really funny because for about the first week or so people kept wandering past the door and staring in because there still were very few female engineers and to have two arrive on one day and my other colleague very, very blonde hair, they were fascinated on our floor. So it took a few months I think for the novelty of us to wear off.

I was impressed at how professional everything was. Everything was set up for me and there were things for me to do starting from day one so, yes, I got straight into it. The people I had around me were experts in their field and more than that, actually enjoyed sharing their knowledge so I sort of asked many questions. I think the biggest compliment I had from my colleague was that I asked a lot of questions but I never asked the same question twice. That was the way my training happened and then as other different projects came up I would start to learn how to do those so it wasn’t very formal but it was, I think, very useful.