- Contributed by听
- CSV Action Desk/大象传媒 Radio Lincolnshire
- People in story:听
- Harry Taylor
- Location of story:听
- Bassingham, Lincolnshire
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A4622311
- Contributed on:听
- 30 July 2005
We used to have to apply at the offices down at Sleaford if we wanted any labour. The Prisoners of War were billeted at different hostels. My father applied and we got two to come on the farm; an older man who was very good with horses and the other had been a ladies hairdresser before the war. He told us that our because of our broad Lincolnshire accents we spoke very poor english!
I used to milk the cows by hand. We got petrol engines to run machinery later in the 1940's.
In 1942 the Village Hall in Bassingham was used as a billet for the land army girls. There was a lot of interest stirred up amongst the local young men when they moved in. That's how I met my wife.
We also had some Ukranians who worked on the land for us. One of them, John, was an excellent worker. His father and brother had been sent to Siberia to work so he had joined the German army which is how he ended up with us.
One of our other POW workers, Peter met a German girl who came to work at St. George's hospital when freedom was declared. They got two rooms to live in in Bassingham but when one of the cottages came empty on our farm they moved in there and had a family. Eventually they moved back to Cologne.
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