大象传媒

STORY TITLE:: MEMORIES OF A LAND ARMY GIRL

NAME: Evelyn Booth Civilian

LOCATION OF STORY: Millfield, Near Wooler, Northumberland

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from the 大象传媒 on behalf of Evelyn Booth and has been added to the site with her permission. Evelyn fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

This is my mother, Margaret Johnson鈥檚 (maiden name) story which she recorded before her death in January 2005. She was in the Land Army during the war and these are some of her experiences:

鈥淚 joined the Women鈥檚 Land Army when I was 18 years old and was sent to a farm called Shidlaw, the last farm in England. It was a Sunday when we arrived for tea - boiled eggs! - we thought we had hit the jackpot. There were four girls to share one room - 2 to a bed. We had a small basin to get washed in, the toilet was just a bucket in a hut (disgusting). Conditions were so bad that we were moved to a hostel in Wooler which was a very happy and well-run hostel. The warden was Mrs Grey and the under warden Miss Purvis. We had bunk beds which we had to make up every morning. We got up at 5.30 - the hostel had 50 girls and on the whole we had a happy time there. It was like living in a palace after the terrible conditions of living at Shidlaw Farm.

Something that I will never forget! We were sorting potatoes from a storage clump in a field near Doddington Moor. Overhead were two planes from the nearby drome at Millfield which is not far from Wooler. I think the pilots were training. I said to the others beside me 鈥淚 hope they don鈥檛 crash鈥� As I got the words out the planes hit each other and came down in flames. We ran up the hill go see if we could do something but it was hopeless - there were just two heaps of burning metal. This memory is still fresh in my mind today.

One day when we were threshing the oats, at our break at 10 o鈥檆lock I felt something on my back. It was a mouse - it must have climbed up my trousers. Believe me I did a striptease - not gracefully with music but with shrieks and jumping about till one of the men got hold of it from my back.

I loved working with the sheep, cattle and their young ones, each sheep is different but when in a flock they all look alike, but their faces had different looks and expressions, also some take over the lead and others are more timid.

There is a lot I could tell about life in the Land Army but it is easier to talk than for me to write now. We had a re-union at the Albert Hall at 25 years 1n 1969 for Land Army girls all over the country and one at 50 years.鈥�

My mother married my father, a shepherd,
Andrew D Paton, in 1944. VE day was celebrated on 8th May 1945 and I was born three days after on 11th May 1945.

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