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I was a shop assistant in Hull when I volunteered for the W.L.A. at the age of 17 years and 9 months. I was sent to Malton in Yorkshire and arrived on the doorstep of Yates and Sons, Farm Machinery Suppliers, on an icy February morning. I was shivering in thin clothes’ (my uniform had gone astray in transit).
I was to be hired out with a threshing team which consisted of the machine, a steam engine, a driver, a fireman and two other Land Girls. We were given ‘War Agriculture’ bicycles and instructed to follow the team within a twelve mile radius of our billet in Westow village.
My only experience of the countryside before, was riding through it as a keen cyclist. I loved the out doors and growing things in city gardens, so I soon got tuned in to the country life. Even so, it was very strange and hard at first.
My workmate was to be a girl of 21 years from Leeds, also a beginner. The first problem was teaching her to ride a heavy bike. She had never ridden before and was very nervous. After a few tumbles and giggles she got the hang of it. Now we were ready to start.
The noise, dust and back breaking ‘Chaff’ carrying seemed a bit of a nightmare to me but after a while we got used to it. I decided, that if I was to be stuck with a winter season of threshing, I had better become more efficient so that I could get away from this dreaded task.
After a short course and test, I received a proficiency badge and was able to work straw stacking, building up the corners as good as a man. I heaved bales about, threaded the baler with wire, I could even perch on top of the machine, feeding the roller drum with sheaves of corn, or band cutting for the feeder. We followed this routine daily until Easter and after a week's holiday back in Hull, we were sent to do field work at a farm in North Grimston. The two of us stayed there until after the Harvest when the threshing team was once again, loaned out for the winter season.
We were a good working partnership. Edna and I soon learnt to put up with each others idiosyncrasies. She was not used to going out at night too much. Often, I would join forces with other Land Girls in Malton and enjoy dancing at the Malton Rooms and other village venues. I remember the wonderful music from the Coldstream Guards, as they played their delightful Military Two Steps and rousing Quicksteps, every Saturday night. Malton became the Guards H.Q. so there was often interesting events going on.
Our living accommodation in Westow was not a happy arrangement. The District Commissioner, Lady Howard-Vyse helped us to find more suitable lodgings. We were delivered by her car, to Langton where we stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Bradley in a cottage. She looked after us very well and became my second mum. I have nothing but praise for her. Isaac, her husband, was a Woodsman and Gamekeeper for the Langton Estate. He helped us enormously. A true countryman like his father before him. The name of Isaac Bradley is still gathering moss on the village Memorial Stone.
We cycled many miles to work. I used to envy the Land Girls who passed in lorries as they were driven from their hostel to the farms. They always looked so happy, and sang in unison wherever they went. I missed the comradeship they obviously found in groups, but the family life in the cottage had it’s own rewards.
As we sat on the pricked hearth rug by the log fire, Isaac would tell us yarns about his youth on the farms and lots of folklore. I can still smell the paraffin lamp and the home made Beeswax, the stored apples in boxes, the bacon hanging from the ceiling, the goose grease he used on his chest for his cough, the dubbin from our boots as they dried by the fire and of course, the dung which lingered on our overalls and breeches.
Our days in the fields were mostly enjoyable, though hard work. I enjoyed haymaking, tossing the loads into the carts and riding the horses home. No one taught us how to ride or even harness a horse, they presumed we knew all these things, because we wore the uniform.
My first experience was memorable. The harness was not fixed properly and off I slid under the horses belly. I was dragged along the rough lane hanging on like grim death. I had to be helped up and ‘pinned up’ as the foreman said. My rear end was a sight for sore eyes, I was a long time living that down.
No one ever told us about wearing a mask when we mixed the pink chemical powder into the corn. I had been doing the job for eight hours. I had a breathing problem and much discomfort. We were supposed to know about these things. However, we survived and stayed happy most of the time.
I enjoyed scything thistles as we stood in a row of three or four workers, making our way across the pastures. Being left handed brought its own problems. I developed a powerful swing and a good rhythm. My left handed action caused the unfortunate worker beside me, to jump about to avoid losing a foot as I swung in the opposite direction to everyone else. I was ridiculed as a ‘cack-handed’ townie and sent to the back.
After that, I worked twice as hard to prove myself. I loved standing at the edge of the field with the long curved blade in the air as I sharpened it with the flint stone and a bit of spit. This is how I was taught by the ‘Thirdie lad’, a kind but slow-witted youth, whom I nicknamed ‘Fondie’ after a character in a book of that name. I wish I could find that wonderful book again. What marvellous characters I met on the Wolds. The dialect was a delight to me and often I scribbled it in my diary.
Moving on to Driffield Bainton and Mr. Barratt, I joined another threshing team. This time the old steam engine was replaced with a tractor. We lost the soot, smoke and inconvenience but more than anything, we lost an old friend. A friend who had kept us warm on frosty mornings as he hissed and sang to us as no other engine could.
We were billeted in North Dalton in the cottage of the widowed Mrs. Wilson. She looked after us well and instructed her son to keep and eye on us at night. He used to escort us to the village Inn for a shandy and we would sit in the snug. It had a wood fire and wonderful hot bread cakes that would be produced from the oven, dripping with butter.
We used to enjoy the village dances where for sixpence or a shilling, we could dance our legs off in Land Army brogues. A perfect match for the farm boots our partners often wore. I remember the lovely refreshments provided by the village ladies. Even with food rationing, they still produced deep apple pies filled with cloves. We had crusty home made bread with pork dripping if someone had killed a pig.
We had to wash by the light of a candle or oil lamp and if we were lucky, we would have one jug of warm water each. I often arrived at a dance with threshing dust in corners I could hardly see in the dimly lit mirror. How I looked forward to my weekly bath in the zinc tub in the privacy of the garden shed. The warm water, passed in buckets from the kitchen boiler. I never felt deprived of conveniences then.
I remember working in the fields with the Italian prisoners of war, that were stationed at Eden Camp in Malton. They used to sing opera as they worked and a few of them fancied themselves as ‘Romeos’. They used to write love notes on toilet paper which they threw at us from their lorries. We would giggle but back away, being half afraid of the situation, and not wanting to be caught fraternising with the enemy.
They were clever craftsmen and often gave the farm workers, slippers they had made from the ‘Massey Harris Band’ which we used for binding the sheaves of corn. The wooden carvings they made were beautiful. It used to sadden me. They should have been sat by their own firesides, carving for their own families. War-time, and all the horrors that are associated with it, is such a terrible time for the family.
The comradeship we all learn during these trying times, was something that we should all really try to benefit by. I am sure that the Land Girls did just that.

Iris M. Newbould, Hull, Humberside.

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