大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Pam Riding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mrs Lawton and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Well to begin with I was in the A.R.P till the time came to be called up. I already had a brother in the Army and another brother in the Air Force and I really wanted to go in the Wrens, but my father said, "I am not having you in the Forces, three of you that might never come home again" so I said, "Well, in that case dad, I will not go into munitions, I will join the Land Army". And he said, "That's fine", so of course, I did. My grandfather had a big farm down outside Selby at a place called Kellington and so I asked if I could be sent there, but not to live with my grandfather. I wanted to go into billets-so I did and I went to a house called Roll Hall which I was billeted in. There were two of us there at the time. We used to have to be up by 7 in the morning to be at work for half past, which we cycled to. To begin with I was on the poultry which was very hard work and later on I transferred to the other side of farming. Of course we got far more land girls, because in Selby there was a hostel and if they wanted more girls they came out from the hostel to work with us. We had to be at work for half past seven and we used to finish at dusk in the ordinary daytime. In summer we worked till 10 or half past at night, harvesting. We always had a little packed lunch. Sometimes we used to get something brought out to drink from somewhere if we were working late. Then I went to a billet near West Haddlesey which was very nice - a mile and a quarter away which I still had to cycle to backwards and forwards. They were very enjoyable times. I made a lot of friends and I still am very friendly with the son and his wife of where I was billeted at Haddlesey. We meet up once a year and have a lovely time. Whilst we were doing the arable land, it was hoeing, sugar beet pulling, and potato. There were no machines- we had it to do it all by hand, in cold, frosty weather. There was ice on the sugar beets. Pick them, pile them up and then the horse and cart would come. When it was potato picking, no machines to get the potatoes up, you got down on hands and knees and called it potato scratting. For an extra bit of money we went out to other farms in the autumn, pea picking, and altogether it was very enjoyable. There was an aerodrome very near by and sometimes one of the airmen came to the farm because we also had sheep and he was from a sheep farming family, so he came to help the herdsman. We had to do milking, cows and everything, cleaning out. I can't say it was a bad time at all. To begin with we had Italian prisoners of war-they came to help in the busy times because there was a camp nearby and then they left and we got German prisoners of war which was alright and I was put in charge of ten of them. The army used to bring them to the end of the lane and I would pick them up, take them to work in the field and then when the time came for the army to pick them up, I used to walk them back up to the end of the road and we'd never any trouble-they worked very hard and I think they were glad to be out of the war really. When my boyfriend came home from the war, I left the Land Army and we were married and that's all I can tell you. I just did four and a half years.

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