大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War by a volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Mary Wilsher and has been added to the site with her permission. Mary Wilsher fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Mary Wilsher (Stokes) was a tractor driver based Mount Ballan, where there were 70 Land Girls. I was about 19. I was nursing at the Gwent and I didn't like it, the Land Girls had dug up the gardens and I saw them and thought "That's for me!" I went to Usk college to learn to plough and reap and sow and I never looked at a field with contempt again, it was quite complicated. We had to drive the tractors with cleats on on the steep hillsides and if we went on the roads we had to put road bands over them which covered three quarters of the wheel to protect the roads (and inevitably they came off). I drove a tractor with fuel for 2 weeks in a trailer behind me and I trailed through Monmouthshire. We ploughed the hills in Devauden and I was alone with 2 German prisoners and I never thought anything about it. They gave me a lot of keepsakes, Willie and Henry.

Our Matron, Miss Riley, was the retired matron from Chepstow hospital. The highlight was when the Americans were stationed at Portskewett woods, which was owned by Joan Phillips. We held dances for the Americans because the matron thought they would be better for us than the local boys. I met my husband at the YMCA dance on a Friday evening which was in Church Road in Caldicot, there was coffee and tea and 2 table tennis tables and 3 billiard tables and a dartboard. "Ivy Benson" played the piano and Roy Nancekieval played the drums. We had to be in by 10:30 and one night I was late and the Americans saw me home and the matron was there with a candle and a nightcap, waiting for me. We used to have our heads checked for lice every month but I can't remember what happened if they found anything.

I left at VE day because my mother was ill and because we weren't military we had to go onto agricultural wages and there were no gratuities. We'd been earning 30 shillings a week. After the war we lived in the keep, and our son was born there, at Caldicot Castle, which was owned by Colonel Cobb, for 4 years before we moved to Portskewett where I've been for 50 years!

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