大象传媒

Daphne Cross 鈥� Land Army Life

I am not likely to forget the date of the Second World War as it was on my 18th birthday 鈥� 3rd September 1939. My recollection of that day 鈥� and several days ahead 鈥� was helping mother (and others) with evacuees (I imagine from London) and placing them with families in the Horndean area. We were operating from a rather comfortless empty house in Horndean where a previous Doctor Nash used to live. When the first flood of children were more or less organised and things were quieter there did not seem anything for me to do so I looked around for something I would be doing as a wartime job. Having just been to Sparsholt, the agricultural college in Hampshire, for a year the choice was pretty obvious 鈥� the Land Army!
There were around a hundred children in that first week to be placed. Later on they evacuated a school and locals had lessons in the morning and the evacuees had lessons in the afternoon.
There is a hill just to the north of Portsmouth called Portsdown Hill into which a cave was dug where evacuees were accommodated.

While I was waiting for a job, I spent endless days digging a neighbour鈥檚 potatoes. Then I got a job on Health鈥檚 Farm (which was within easy walking distance). It was decidedly boring and consisted of arriving early in the morning to bottle milk for the milk round and the rest of the day seemed to consist of washing dirty bottles, draining out the cowshed and putting up with inane remarks from the younger son. That job soon palled!! My friend Kay had gone to work at Lyndhurst for a 鈥榞entleman farmer鈥� who bred racehorses and kept a rare breed of white cow 鈥� with black noses 鈥� called English Park Cow. She very much wanted me to join her there. I was terrified of high-spirited horses and the only milk I had extracted from my animal was from the goats we kept at home 鈥� and they used to kick me unmercifully!!
So I had an interview and got the job. Kay assured me she would soon teach me to milk by hand 鈥� there were about 15 鈥� 20 cows and no machine. Well I remember the kicks and aching hand and wrists I suffered before I got proficient at it. The first time I was left to milk on my own some dastardly cow kicked me across the back of my hand which immediately swelled up and I had to do the rest with one hand. It took hours and when Kay came back from her afternoon off I was still struggling 鈥� and in tears by that time. We made cream and had a milk round in the village. Needless to say it was my job (being a complete novice!) to drive the pony and milk float on the round. I must have been mad in those days, I had never driven such a thing before and Peggy (the pony) and I struck up an immediate hate relationship! She was determined to inflict grievous bodily harm on my shoulder by biting me every time I put her harness on. I had a permanent bruise all the time I was at Lyndhurst. I had precious little control over her movements once in the trap and she was hell-bent on spilling me and the milk all over the village. One or two houses were on hills, and I would have to walk up the hills leading the float, but coming down she imagined she was in a race and all the pulling on the reigns did not stop her mad career down the drives and no stop at the bottom to see if any traffic was coming (fortunately there never was!!), straight onto the road and our next call.
When I was at Lyndhurst in the New Forest right at the beginning of the war a very bad experience was going through Southampton during an air raid. I was returning to work in the New Forest. Burning building all around 鈥� very frightening.
I remember one particular morning when it had snowed heavily and I had to stop every few yards and remove snow from her hooves. I think it took all day to do the round. That winter I got terrible chilblains on my knees of all places and had to give up wearing Land Army breeches we were issued with! Luckily I was not required to have much to do with the racehorses; there was a bad tempered groom and boy who looked after them. About the only time I had to walk a frisky colt round and round the yard, the wretched thing reared up and hit me in the ribs completely knocking the wind out of me. I fell down and let the colt go and got into terrible trouble from the groom 鈥� no sympathy for my agony at all!! I had endless adventures at Lyndhurst and really learnt quite a lot there. We also had quite a social life with dances in the village hall. There were a lot of soldiers stationed around the area. As far as the war was concerned we had a lot of bombing on Southampton (and nearer) and could easily see the fires burning in the town. The most frightening experience I had was coming back from Lyndhurst from home by coach and being driven through Southampton in an air raid. There were incendiaries falling all around us and we kept getting held up by fires etc., I really thought it was the end that night! The other nasty moment I had was sometime later when I was living at home again. We had a land mine dropped not too far away. I was in bed (of course it was dark) and I felt something falling all over me, then Daddy came in and told me to get up and come downstairs. I lay there saying I could not move because I was covered in glass (I thought from the window) but it turned out to be the ceiling which had fallen down on me. A nasty few moments!
Deadly things, land mines, because you didn鈥檛 hear them coming and they exploded sideways.
Living so close to Portsmouth, unused ammunition was dropped on nearby farmland. We had 32 bombs on our farm 鈥� my husband was bombed on his tractor, and had earth all over him. A German plane crashed onto our farmland and the pilot was captured by the Home Guard 鈥� a very exciting event for the villagers!

Having had quite an adventurous time at Lyndhurst, in the Spring of 1941 I decided to leave (Kay had already left and it wasn鈥檛 the same with her successors) and I returned home, thinking I would soon be given another job, but the Land Army was very dilatory and I got fed up with waiting so I got on my bike and cycled round several farms asking if they wanted a Land Girl (what a cheek!). Eventually Geoff鈥檚 father said he would give me a trial and so my life at Blendworth Farm started at Easter 1941 and I eventually married Geoff in 1944, and we stayed there until 1962 when the farm was sold.
The agricultural scene was so vastly different when I started 鈥榩roper鈥� farming than today. My first job was leading a carthorse (May she was called) up and down the field with a hoe attached and a grumpy man 鈥� Frank Rowe 鈥� steering it. Many was the time he shouted and cussed me because I went crooked 鈥� and many were the times when May trod on my feet as I was so inexperienced. And of course the milking arrangements were archaic compared with the conditions my son Richard works under these days. The cowman was Bert Taylor and he taught me machine milking etc. We had three cowsheds and milked about 40 鈥� 50 cows. The dairy was about 100 yards away and we had to carry the milk in buckets to the dairy and then lift them up to empty into the cooler. It was pretty hard work and certainly developed my muscles 鈥� I鈥檝e had strong arms ever since! Between milkings I did just about every job at some time or another. My future father-in-law must have had a blind spot as far as my competence was concerned, because I just learned as I went along!
The first tractor I drove was an ancient Fordson which was sadly lacking in efficient brakes! The first kind words Geoff said to me were after I tried to brake on a hill while using a hay rake and the tractor and rake just went downhill backwards and broke the draw bar. I was terrified and in tears and went to find help. Geoff was in the next field and said 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry, his bark鈥檚 worse than his bite!鈥� Actually his father thought it was highly amusing! The best times were haymaking and harvest 鈥� the old fashioned way. I especially enjoyed my job of sitting on the binder at harvest time, working the levers which regulated the corn cutting. Either Geoff or Fred Blanks would be on the tractor. The hours were very long, especially when they brought in double summer time and we would work until 11 o鈥檆lock some nights, bringing in loads of sheaves. What used to annoy us was that in the evenings the soldiers would come and help. They had been doing very little all day and we were exhausted because we had been working very hard through the day! They used to tease the life out of us!
We had various additions of Land Girls over the years. Two Londoners I remember, one poor girl didn鈥檛 know which was a tractor and which was a trailer! The regulators were Liz Rowe and a local girl Kathleen Berry, who used to have a few weeks off each year to have a baby. (We had a lot of soldiers camping round Blendworth!)
I was feeling very rich in those days as I earned 拢4 a week 鈥� I remember feeling very generous as I occasionally gave my sisters Jo and Margaret the odd 拢1 to supplement their pocket money. When I first knew Geoff he was earning 12/6 plus keep a week! When we got engaged his money went up to 拢1 a week and we had 拢5 a week when we married (and managed to save a little each week as well!)
The war was going on around us and on top of us. There were at least 30 bombs dropped on the farm 鈥� planes unloading on their way home and of course Portsmouth was a regular target and it was quite common to see a dog fight going on overhead. The farmhouse was refuge to relations from Portsmouth to get away from the bombing, so it was pretty full most of the time. At times it seemed they weren鈥檛 really very much safer as aircraft passed over the village all the time. But compared with Portsmouth it was safer!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.