大象传媒

Ever since I can remember I have loved animals, and as the time when I would be leaving school drew nearer, I hoped to find a job in some kennels or stables. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the Second World War put a stop to that, so I determined that as soon as I was old enough I would join the Women's Land Army. The waiting seemed interminable, and when I saw other girls in the distinctive green and fawn uniform, the longing to be one of them was almost a physical pain. At last I reached that magical age, only to have my hopes dashed again as my mother and father refused to give their consent, originally thinking that the war would all be over before I was of an age to leave the shelter of my home. With a little deception, and the collusion of a friend who was already in the Land Army, I finally persuaded my father to sign the necessary papers, and one Monday morning, early in November, resplendent in my brand new uniform, I boarded the train for Lincoln, my destination a hostel in a tiny village on the Fosseway between Lincoln and Newark.

My father had carried my case to the train for me and deposited it on the rack, so when I arrived at Lincoln, gaping at the soaring towers of the Cathedral, I found I was only a weak city 'rookie' after all and couldn't carry the thing more than a few yards. Fortunately, a sailor pushing a bicycle came to my rescue and carried it on his saddle as far as the bus station. To my relief I found other 'new girls' also waiting to go to the same hostel, so in no time at all we were excitedly and nervously chattering like monkeys. We were met from the bus by a beefy looking individual who looked as though she could have driven a team of horses with one hand tied behind her back, and who led us up the lane to the hostel. We were met at the door by a statuesque 'no nonsense' warden, who immediately shooed us into a long, low room, which contained trestle tables and hard wooden chairs, an anthracite stove, an ancient piano and lino of a nondescript colour. At the far end was a huge wooden hatch which hid the kitchen and from which issued a lot of banging, clattering and shouting. I was to learn later that the kitchen staff 'didn't get on' an understatement! I can't remember now what the meal consisted of, except that whatever the vegetables were had gone to seed, and evidence of this was floating about in the gravy. We were made welcome by the other girls though and even the sight of a concrete floored dormitory, with an old pot bellied stove and fragile looking plywood bunks couldn't dim the excitement that at last I was in the WLA and raring to go.

It was still dark and very misty when I was awakened the next morning, and after a quick wash in the freezing cold, creaking rusty piped ablution block, I followed the other girls into a breakfast of 'door steps', jam and tea. We 'rookies' were each given a chunky metal lunch box and a jam jar containing our weekly ration of 2ozs. butter and 4ozs. margarine, and told to make our dinner sandwiches from an adjoining table which held another pile of door steps, a bowl of pickled beetroot and a great lump of hard cheese. If I imagined I was immediately going to take on the character of the popular image of a land girl, with a hay fork over one shoulder and a foaming bucket of milk in my hand, I was sadly mistaken, as I was told I would be on 'field work', with about 20 other girls. A little later a horn tooted outside, and we gathered up our coats and lunch boxes and trooped outside into the raw air. An old fashioned charabanc awaited us with a grumpy old man at the wheel, whom everybody addressed as 'Gibby'. I was told that nobody had ever seen him smile, but that he had a kind heart somewhere under his shabby coat. We appeared to rattle along for hours, and as it gradually lightened and the mist cleared, I could see acres and acres of arable land interspersed by small farms and villages, with the occasional aircraft hangar looming in the distance. We finally arrived at the entrance to an enormous field where we all tumbled out, stretched our cramped limbs, and looked desolately around us. Not for long though, as we were each given a large, round basket, and lined up in a row at several yards intervals, ready to start 'potato picking'. The tractor would come along with the spinner attached, spraying earth and lifting the potatoes. We had to pick them up in double quick time, put them in the basket, leave it to be collected and emptied into a cart slowly passing down the field, and then grab another of the numerous baskets scattered around and start all over again. My clumsy, cold fingers were nowhere near quick enough, and I gradually got further and further behind until my potatoes were getting covered by the next shower of earth from the spinner before I had chance to pick them up, so I was very relieved when it was time for our dinner break. We sat huddled against a stone wall, and the unappetising sandwiches I had made earlier tasted like nectar I was so famished. They were washed down by the hot, strong tea the 'leaders' produced in large flasks. After climbing over the wall for the 'facilities', we resumed work, and I even managed to increase my speed, but Gibby's whistle at finishing time was like sweet music in my ears, and we dragged our weary limbs back to the old coach and our new home.

By the next evening, we new girls ached in every bone and muscle, so acutely that we were reduced to tears. We tried sitting on our pillows, laying on our bunks and walking about, but we could get no relief. I found one girl sitting in the ablution block crying for her mother and I sat down and joined her! Not even the antics of the hostel 'comedienne' or the assurances of the old hands that it would soon pass could raise a smile, and I was even too miserable to worry about the fact that I had joined the Land Army to be amongst animals not potatoes! But of course it did pass, and soon I was able to pick potatoes as fast as anybody else, and even earned a bonus to supplement my 拢1 8s 0d. per week. Although I was constantly enquiring about the opportunities to get into dairy farming, at least on field work I had the advantage of having Saturday afternoons and Sundays free. After lunch on Saturdays we would rush to get washed and changed (queueing for a bath took too long), and dash down to the main road to get the hourly bus into Lincoln, always hoping that it wouldn't already be full of RAF personnel from the nearby aerodrome. More often than not it !was! full and we would either thumb a lift or rush back to the hostel for our bicycles (I had taken mine back with me on my first visit home), and cycle the 12 miles into Lincoln tough luck for anybody who had arranged to meet a date! As it was getting very near to Christmas now, the shops were decorated as far as austerity and the black out would allow, but there was very little in the way of Christmas goods, and any enquiries were met with 'There's a war on you know'. Nevertheless, to us it was exciting to squeeze into a booth in the Rainbow snack bar and make short work of a few milk shakes (no need to worry about putting on weight with out 20" waists slimmed down by hard work and exercise), then visit one of the town's cinema to laugh over Eddie Cantor, drool over Fred McMurray or cry with Greer Garson. Sometimes we would climb the steep, cobbled street to the Cathedral and the funny little antique shops, before chancing a rather questionable cornish pasty at one of the few pro Land Army canteens in the town. Having had a very sheltered upbringing, apart from the obvious advice my mother gave me before I left home, she emphasised that I should never talk to Americans or go into public houses (in those days, according to my mother only 'certain types' of females went into pubs!). We couldn't avoid the former, as there were several American air bases in the area, and when we met up with them in snack bars or canteens, we found that most of them just wanted to talk about their homes and families, or share a joke, and they must have felt very isolated in out tiny country, thousands of miles from home.

As for the second part of my mother's advice, the village pub was the hub of entertainment indeed the only means of entertainment, and in the evenings the majority of the girls would make their way there. I refused to go at first, thinking how horrified my mother would be if she ever found out, but after sitting on my own for a few evenings writing letters or listening to the only two records we possessed and they were cracked on a wheezy old gramophone, I was persuaded to join them. And what fun we had too, as the place was always full of ready laughter, practical joking and general bonhomie. Off duty airmen, turning their backs on danger for a few precious hours, a sprinkling of WAAFs, young civilians exempt from service because of their work and grizzled old men, who would show toothless grins, poke us with their walking sticks, and tell us they wished they were young again. The landlord was jovial and kind, and because he would always share out his precious cigarette quota fairly, he was very popular. He also arranged for a film show once a month in his grand sounding 'concert room', which was really little more than a barn. But how we enjoyed such gems as 'Going My Way' and 'Sun Valley Serenade', and despite the cat calls, we didn't really mind if the mobile projector broke down once or twice during the film. I didn't drink myself, but would accept a packet of crisps in lieu, some evenings going back to the hostel with a tinful of them. Fortunately, there was a plentiful supply, as the factory happened to be in Lincoln. Any feelings of guilt about all this 'riotous living' was soon assuaged, as I wrote to my parents and 'confessed' that I had been in a public house and the reasons why. Nothing more wicked than a packet of crisps!

We were often invited to dances at the aerodrome, which was about 2 陆 miles away, at the bottom of a steep hill. We would don our few civilian clothes (clothing coupons were in force) and whizz down the hill, two sometimes three to a bike! Many a time we ended up in a ditch. We enjoyed the dances as there was always plenty of food at the buffet, and as we were permanently hungry, we would stuff ourselves with ham sandwiches, trifles and other goodies. With our trim waists and glowing outdoor complexions, we were never short of partners, and already knew quite a lot of the 'boys' from our evenings in the pub, but the WAAFs hated us and refused to mix with us at all. Cycling back up the hill after the dances was always a problem, although our numbers were fewer as some had managed to get lifts, but even so, trying to peddle with a passenger on the saddle often resulted in a flat tyre, or even a broken chain, and we would have to walk back to the hostel, and, finding the door locked, either climb in the window left conveniently open or knock up the warden and get a good ticking off and a penalty, such as washing up for a week.

We had a Christmas party at the hostel before dispersing for some leave, and those girls who had local boy friends, usually Air Force, were allowed to invite them. We made our own trimmings and table decorations from whatever we could find or cadge from our parents. Sheets were used as table cloths, and the large, locked, wooden cupboards in the kitchen gave up their secret hoard of tinned ham, corned beef, salmon, fruit salad, and peaches, boxes of biscuits and Dundee cakes, boxes of chocolates and sweets. A few complained that this was food we had been deprived of during the year, but who cared it was going to be a glorious bash. It was lucky there were no houses around us, as accompanied by the thumping of the un tuned piano, we clattered our heavy shod feet in an okey cokey competition the winners presented with a large bag of nuts. Childish games like musical chairs were attacked with gusto, and even the feuding kitchen staff managed a sickly smile at each other. All a far cry from our modern day discos, but we no doubt had just as much fun.

Even going on leave was like an excursion into the unknown, as it was necessary to get a lift into Newark in order to get trains or bus connections to our homes. Occasionally we were fortunate enough to enjoy the comfort of a private car, but more often than not it was a builder's lorry or a truck transporting vegetables or boxes of fish. Two of us even shared the side car of a motor bike on one occasion, which was rather hair raising when the bike kept to the road, but the side car went over a pile of gravel on the verge. On another occasion, the only transport we were able to get was in a coal wagon, and I arrived home in such a filthy state that I wasn't allowed into the house until I had stripped off!

Once in Newark, if we had time before our trains or buses took us off in all directions, we would call in at the NAAFI for a cup of tea and whatever we could scrounge. One time they let us have some rare and precious oranges. It was a cold winter's day with thick snow, and as we walked along the pavement in the direction of the station I slipped and dropped my orange which rolled into the road, right in the path of an approaching lorry. I was so dismayed at the thought of losing my treasured orange, that I threw myself after it, skidding headlong in front of the truck just as it pulled up, split my trousers and had to borrow a 'housewife' from one of the lads to stitch myself up.

Having arrived home, although I was delighted to see my family and friends, I missed my compatriots, the companionship, the fun, and, yes, even the hard work. In addition, as I was so used to getting up early in the mornings, I exasperated my parents by clattering around the house at 5 30 in the morning. I was even noisy trying to keep quiet! When I paid my compulsory visits to relatives, I couldn't think of anything to say, as they appeared to disapprove of anybody enjoying themselves in war time. But I was young, perhaps intolerant and, yes, thoughtless not yet mature enough to grasp the horrors of war. Even though I hadn't yet achieved my yearning to work with animals, life was good, and although I was experiencing the freedom from parental control, I wasn't wild or badly behaved, and I adhered to the Land Army rules. The spartan life, hard work and exercise had made me strong, healthy and supple. I could and was doing a man's job. The 40 odd girls I shared my life with came from all walks of life, but we all got on well together and helped each other, and the odd tiff was soon forgotten. If a familiar face disappeared from the crowd of Air Force boys in the local pub, it was quickly replaced by another, and we soon forgot. We never heard a bomb drop, or saw an enemy 'plane, and we knew the war was going well for us so why worry!

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