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GN- You weren’t aware of Nazi policies or war crimes?

NH- No, not then. War crimes and things like that didn’t come until 1944, 45, then we realized how bad it was. It was just an enemy that we had in the 14-18 war, and we had to do it again. They didn’t know about atrocities until Belsen was shown on the news and things like that. And by then of course I was well into my teens.

GN- What was it like realizing how terrible the Nazis were?

NH- Well, it was stunning, really, wasn’t it? We didn’t think that sort of thing… happened. You couldn’t believe it. I was in the land army then, when that happened, working with Germans. And- well, it was just unbelievable. The German people that I knew, the German prisoners of war, were just ordinary people… like your dad, like anybody else that just walked the streets. Heins was about forty, and he had a couple of kids, his wife lived in Dresden, and he’d never from her since he was made prisoner of war. He was wounded. He had only one lung. He was an ordinary telephone engineer. Alfred was a Polish Jew, that had been in Buchenwald, who had been stuck in the front in Russia, and then in the German [western] front, and of course they put their hands straight up when they saw British soldiers- that was it. He had been beaten up in Buchenwald, he was a mess, he looked about 70. He’d had his jaw broke, and his teeth kicked in and… He was the most nice man you could ever wish to meet. He only wanted to please. Hans was about nineteen- indoctrinated. He had been taught that he was master race. He went to the [Hitler] Youth camps, he was indoctrinated. He was just the odd one out. The average German soldier was just the same as the British, but they had their fanatics. They had a few in the [POW] camp that were Nazis. And you had to watch them. They only came to the farm occasionally, as a gang. But the ones that came regular, they were just ordinary fellas, no different from everyone else. Hmmm… One of them was very, very bad, he was definitely a German… and he would have killed anyone in this country if he’d had a chance. He had a shrine, and a photograph of his shrine, and his pocket of his brother who had been killed in the air force, and his shrine and he worshipped that, his mother worshipped this son… they were Nazis, yes. But the majority of them weren’t they were just indoctrinated. The younger ones were indoctrinated. From about 12,14, it was put into them. And if you tell someone something long enough they believe it. One casual worker we had on the farm, he came on, and he was only a very slightly built young man… very, very frightened… he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. But he was only 16 year old, he was a rear gunner. Now you can imagine yourself at 16. He had been indoctrinated to be a Nazi, but at the same time stuck in the rear of a bomber, and been shot down you can imagine the trauma that lad was in. But he had been told, at the school that he went to, that if he was taken prisoner, he would be badly treat. And he was absolutely terrified of the foreman on the farm. And although we tried to tell him that there was nothing to worry about, he was scared. He didn’t know where he was. That is… that was the German we were fighting, sometimes. You couldn’t really be… too harsh about it, they were just people. A lot of people in the army wouldn’t even speak to them; I mean they did treat them pretty rotten. Wouldn’t give them a fag or anything like that. You know, they treat them bad. But on the whole they were just ordinary people, there were one or two that were bad. As Heins used to say, oh, just ignore them, they’re just young rabble, but then there’s young rabble now, isn’t there?

GN- (Noncommittal grunt)
NH- (Laugh)

GN- So how did you come to be in the Land Army?

NH- Because I wanted to be. (Laugh) I couldn’t wait till I was seventeen. I worked in an insurance office, and I didn’t want to work in one of those. I wanted to go and work outside somewhere, and I was against the other four women’s forces, I just wanted to go in the land army. It was just one of those things I wanted to do. My father didn’t want me to go in. He gave me three months, and said I’d be home crying my eyes out (…) but it’s what I wanted to do.

GN- Where did you stay while you were there?

NH- In a hostel, with another 20 odd women. Which was a bit of a shock to the system at seventeen.

GN- From all over? Different backgrounds?

NH- All different backgrounds, yes. There were some from the… roughest part of Newcastle. It was difficult living with other girls, but we had our morals and we had our standards, and we all kept to it. And we definitely wanted respect, for our hostel. There were a lot of regiments of the army, and there was the RAF base, just within the circle of where I was. A lot of men. And it was quite easy to get a bad name. The initials of WLA was enough. (Because ‘women lie anywhere’ you know). We didn’t want that reputation in our hostel. There was a hostel in (Wulla?) which did have that reputation; but we were about five miles outside. Nobody, no girl was allowed to put it into disrepute, at all. So therefore the regimentation of ourselves, and our own discipline, kept the place clean.

But we had a lot of fun with the army. There was a YMCA, and there was a church canteen, and there was a naffy, so we went to plenty of parties and played a lot of games. You know, table tennis, and we went to the (Wier?) and sat around together, went to the fish and chip shop together, and we had a lot of army friends. But they were all Royal Engineers; most of them would go straight out to build bridges somewhere. But there was a good life, we enjoyed it, and when it came to the actual war part of it, we were in the Earl of Durham’s country house, and he decided that he was going to be in charge of… well, he was in charge of the Home Guard. And he decided that the Land Army in his house was also going to be in the Home Guard as well. So, he had it all planned out that Land Army and the Home Guard would defend our little particular spot in Northumberland. And he loved it!

GN- His moment of glory, yeah.

NH- (Laugh) He used to have little parties in his dining room and he used to plan all these thing. And there was, at one time, a little scare that there might be an invasion in Berwick. And of course there were those road blocks up, it was serious, I mean they did really think there was going to be trouble there, they thought there were going to have some parachutists in or something. And of course they had a meeting that night. And he’d got all his Home Guard, with their forks and picks and what have you, and the land army, and we were all going to go up college valley (?) or somewhere, into the Cheviots, and we were going to be the resistance for that particular area. And he had it all planned out. This was what was going to happen, it was all put out on the table. And he thoroughly enjoyed himself and so did we. But it never came to pass. I think if it had been serious it would have finished up like that, you know, it was one of those things, but it was a joke at that particular time.

GN- I suppose he was rather disappointed it didn’t!

NH- (laughs) Oh he was, yes! But he was lovely, he really loved getting involved in this, and he didn’t want to be the elite, he didn’t want to be an earl, he wanted to be one of the lads. So we enjoyed it. But it would have happened; I think if it had been serious- we would have been serious. There would have been an awful lot of shotguns and things came out… from hidden places, shall we say, for that occasion.

GN- Did you ever worry that the war was going to go badly? That we wouldn’t win?

NH- No, we wouldn’t have thought of that then. We never dreamed about that. We couldn’t possibly lose the war.

GN- Even when France…

NH- And Dunkirk, yes, no! No, you never heard anybody talk like that. They just did not believe it, it couldn’t happen. Nobody was a defeatist in those days. You had to think positive. I mean it wasn’t good, when there was the Battle of Britain and that sort of thing… and Dunkirk, it all looked very black, and people worried about it… But they weren’t despondent; it wasn’t going to happen... Mind if it had it would have been bad. If they had come here. Because every brown-eyed girl would have been dead, that was known about, that, that was one of the things that would have happened. If you weren’t blue-eyed and blonde you’d had it. He wanted his Aryan race, in this country as well, he didn’t want darker people. They were gypsies, so as far as he was concerned… There was a fear. I mean I suppose in the background people thought about what would happen. But it wasn’t going to happen. I think this country- a lot of people would have committed suicide- died- rather than had them come on the soil. They wouldn’t have given in. I’m sure of that.

I don’t know what would happen these days; it might be quite different because there’s an awful lot of people who wouldn’t want to fight now. But in those days you were indoctrined to the fact that we wouldn’t lose; and that we would win, and it wouldn’t be a war like the 1914-18 war. Because Montgomery was a humanitarian, who wouldn’t just throw soldiers over the top. He was a planner and he knew what he was doing.

GN- You met Italian prisoners of war too?

NH- Oh well, yes, they were a different kettle of fish altogether, weren’t they? (laugh) They weren’t a joke, they weren’t a joke, but they were pathetic (laugh). They didn’t like working. There were no gentlemen amongst the Italians. You had to watch them like hawks. Even in the pictures you had to be careful, if you sat too close to them, because they had more freedom than German prisoners of war. They were allowed to wonder as much as they liked. Which was wrong, really, because they were the worst of the lot. At least the Germans were gentlemen, but by gum! You had to watch your Ps and Qs when it came to Italians!

GN- So they could go out and socialize?

NH- Yeah, well they lived on farms. They went out, just ad lib. They went to the pictures; they went around to the pubs. The only difference they were was that they had maroon uniforms.

GN- So their uniforms were British, but dyed a different colour

NH- Yes, they had battle dress, but dyed maroon coloured. But they were… they thought… they weren’t any respecters of women. They caused a lot of trouble. One attacked my friend, and he was from a camp. And he got a little bit fruity with her, and she wasn’t having that, so she stuck a fork in his foot. And of course there was an awful lot of carry on about that. And then we had interpreters up and all sorts of thigs, but there was no way she was going to put up with that! But you had to watch your back; there was no doubt about it. They were all right, some of them but nobody ever trusted them. Not girls, anyway. If you went to the pictures, often there was a yell, when you went to the fleapit. And then the bruisers used to come out, and haul an Italian out, because he had started to get fruity with the girl next door to him. But that was the way they were, nobody liked them… One thing about them was that they were terrific artists. If you went into an Italian Prisoner of war camp, the artistry in there was terrific, the drawings…

GN- Did they make churches out of things…

NH- Yeah, oh, it was absolutely wonderful. They had put pillars in the Nissan huts, and it was all murals… and it was absolutely fantastic. There was one at Lower Kingswick (?) as well, a shed there that they had done out, and it was fabulous, but that’s all you could say about Italians. They weren’t nice people. They were very, very slimy.

GN- Were there any British soldiers getting jealous that they were going out to fight the war, while all these Italians were back in England getting all this freedom?

NH- A lot of them resented that, yes. There was a few. I wouldn’t say everybody. My friend’s boyfriend… he wouldn’t have anything to do with them at all. But the majority just accepted them. Their war days were over. They were prisoners of war. They weren’t aggressive so people weren’t aggressive with them.

GN- Did any of the prisoners demonstrate despair that they were prisoners of war, and couldn’t be fighting for their countries?

NH- Well just these little Nazis that you had. You had little cliques of Nazis. They were always in gangs; they came out in a bus. They were never allowed to work permanently on a farm. They were only out when there was threshing, and things like that, when there were a lot of people about and they had guards there. The other ones, the likes of the three that used to come regular (could be trusted not to wander off?)

GN- What was your father’s role during the war?

NH- Well, he was a shipyard worker. He was a riveter. He repaired all these ships that came in that had been battered up. There were occasions when he got a bit upset because when there was bodies around, you know, when the ships had come in. But their job was to get the ships out as fast as they could. He was an air raid, you know an ARP warden, and his job was tied to the shipyard.

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