大象传媒

When World War II began in 1939 young men and women at the age of 17 years were called into the Armed Forces. Miners and farm workers were exempt from the call up, although this group did volunteer. An alternative to the Forces was to work in a munitions factory. I chose to join 'The Women's Land Army'.

This army of young women valiantly took the place of absent men from farms, horticulture and forestry; they came from all walks of life.

So on 6th March 1944, I became an enrolled member of the W.L.A and was scheduled to work in Dairy and Arable farming, which was my choice. My uniform duly arrived at my home. It consisted of:

One dark beige knee length wool overcoat
Beige felt hat with badge
Beige vortex working shirts
One light beige cotton dress shirt
Two green wool v-necked jumpers
Two pairs of khaki knee breeches
Three pairs beige Knee-high wool socks
Two cotton twill dungarees
Two long sleeved cotton twill overalls with detachable buttons
One pair of wellingtons with a thick tread
One pair of very stiff leather ankle boots
One pair very hard heavy leather walking shoes with steel caps
One green tie and green arm band with a red crown embroidered on it.

I was sent to work to a farm in Nottinghamshire along with two other land girls. An appointed representative was to supervise our progress periodically, we culd contact her asnytime with ny problems.
Two brothers owned the farm, also the adjacent farm. They were also haulage contractors and lived some six miles away near to their haulage business. A farm manager ran the two farms and lived in the main farmhouse, he was a jovial Scotsman with a young family. He had farmed in Britian and Australia and under his direction the Land Girls were taught their daily tasks.

I lived in with the family mostly, cycling home whenever possible. The other two girls lived in the village. The farmhouse was bleak and cold. Heating came from the large coal fired black iron cooking range in the kitchen, which was let out at night and a fire put in the sitting room. Often there was a new-born suckling piglet in a box in the kitchen, which needed a little nurturing.

The hours were long and arduous beginning at 6.00 am, tumbling out of bed at 5.30 am in the Winter shivering with cold. I'd hurriedly struggle into khaki knee breeches, jumper and wellington boots and splash my face from the cold water tap in the kitchen. Then race outside to the bucket lavatory with a board over it with a hole in it. The farm manager brewed tea and after quickly gulping it down it was then outside, whatever the weather, to begin the day's work.

The girls were geven their allocated tasks of the day. Milking cows was the first job. A corn feed was put into the mangers. Calling the cows in for milking meant traipsing over the hills and through muck and sludge often in pouring rain, fog and thunder and lightening. We were given hessian sacks to fasten around our shoulders and head for protection.

We washed and dried the cows udders and teats before milking which was done by hand and machine. The milk was then poured into domed buckets and carried to the dairy to be filtered and cooled, fridges weren't thought of. In hot weather the churns of milk were stood in the water trough in the farmyard to keep cool. When milking time was over we ate a hearty breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs prepared by the farmer's wife. After breakfast the dairy work was to be done in turns. All buckets, churns and milk coolers were rinsed in cold water first to prevent a greasy film forming. The next stage was a thorough washing in hot soda water using brushes of various shapes for tubing, bottles, etc. The utensils were then put into a steam chest and sterilised.

The cow sheds then had to be cleaned out, the manure swept into a heap and barrowed to a dung heap which was used when well rotted for land fertilisation. The sheds were then hosed and brushed clean. The same procedure in the evening after milking. There were also pigs, poultry and calves to be fed. The horse and pigstys to be cleaned and barrowed to the muckheap.

In between milking there was field work to be done, different types of work as to the season of the year. Muck spreading by fork from a horse drawn casrt, clearing thistles, hoeing and singling turnips and swedes, treading grass and molasses in silos for cattle winter feed.

Harvesting the hay when cut and dried by forking it into hay-cocks and lifting it up on to horse drawn carts nd drays, also by tractor when petrol allowance allowed, raking the field afterwards. Planting potatoes in Spring walking along the ridges, dropping a potato into it, one shoe length apart, cutting hedges and cutting kale for the cows.

The cutter and binder drawn by two shire horses cut the corn harvest. The corn sheaves were stooked up with the corn heads pushed together to form a wigwam shape and left to dry out for a few days. Bare arms were badly scratched and we soon learned to cover up. The stocks when dry were liftedand stakced in the stack yard to await the threshing machine which separated the corn from the corn stalks and corn husks (chaff). The threshing machine travelled from farm to farm during the Winter months. The engine which operated the threshing machine was ahuge coal fired steam engine. Threshing was an extremely dirty dusty job. The string from the sheves of corn was cut and the sheaves fed into a drum which separated the corn from the straw. Bags of corn husks and chopped straw were collected from one end of the machine and the ripe corn poured down a chute at the other end into two hundredweight hessian sacks. We tucked our dungaree legs into our socks as there were lots of mice running around.

In October, crops of mangols and turnips needed to be pulled, topped and harvested. At times the ground was so hard we had to kick at the roots to loosen them. They were then taken and put into clamps near to the farm buildings for Winter feed for the animals. Cartwheels were often bogged down in deep ruts, shire horses needed all their strength to pull the loaded carts clear and the Fordson tractor also got stuck. Potatoes were also earthed up and picked in October and clamped. During the Winter months between milking, feeding animals and clearing out sheds, potato clamps were opened, potatoes were then put through a potato riddle, bagged and weighed. The smallest ones, which fell through the riddle were boiled in a coal-fired boiler and then mashed into pig corn and fed to the pigs. Hundredweight sacks of spuds were then carted and stored in a shed for sale. It was very heavy work, the weather was usually frosty and snow on the ground, nevertheless we worked up a sweat. A good thing there was a hot meal ready in the farmhouse and hot drinks. One would have to have good wholesome food to tolerate the weather conditions and heavy work.

Throughout the Winter months the cows were kept in their stalls and, of course, there was alot of work involved in caring for them. Straw was laid down daily and barrowed to the manure heap. Calves' loose boxes were strewn with straw daily on top of the previous day's and this contined until it was two feet deep and rotted, this was called deep litter.Hay racks and mangers were filled daily with hay. Hay having been cut from the haystacks with a long cutting knife with a long horizontal handle. We carried the hay on a fork on our shoulders to the byre. Turnips and swedes barrowed from the clamps had to be chopped for the cattle. They were out through a choppes run by small 'Lister' motor driven by a wide belt.

Mixing of corn was done daily to mix with turnips and swedes and given at milking time. So busy were the days time just fled by. I had always plenty to write about to my fiance serving in the RAF. He once visited the farm and wanted to help. I asked him to fetch the bull in from the paddock and get behind him and keep him moving, he knew where his shed was. Well, he tried and was terrified and fled; must have thought his end was nigh.

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