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1944-45 — By Daphne Byrne

There are poppies in the corn by the hangar at Ford Aerodrome which is up the lane and trains, with their sinister red crosses reminiscent of a war just before our time, move slowly across our fields. We wave and wounded soldiers wave back.

Books on farming such as Adrian Bell’s Corduroy and poems of the Great War are inspiring reading. Cornflowers grow in the cottage gardens and farm hands breed Belgian hares and Blue Dutch rabbits and we are well fed by the farmers’ wives.
Daphne Byrne Women’s Land Army
They hang sheets out on the hedges and
bushes to dry in the sweet-scented air. Geraniums and rows of Shepherds’ Crowns - fossils millions of years old, picked up on the Sussex Downs, with crown markings perhaps familiar to shepherds in Tudor times - adorn the cottage windowsills.

We have German prisoners of war working on the nursery - mainly elderly men and young boys - and their Commandant, who is courteous, efficient and in charge, is eager to learn English. They are hard working and respectful and the farmer is good to them and supplements their rations. One of the boys has seen his whole family shot by the Nazis. Over at Mr. Gemmels’ farm there are Italians who are more amusing but, given the chance, bone idle.

Unlike today, we cycle sometimes 7 miles to work and back and think nothing of it because we know no better. We make do with very little and attend rather sweaty dances in a shed with a wind-up gramophone, fox-trotting to Glen Miller records of course! Deep purple is all the rage and our romance involves being drenched in Ashes of Roses from Woolworths and wearing (also for 6d.) Tangee lipstick. Alternatively Midnight in Paris is thought to be seductive and a kiss, unlike today, is a chaste, exciting and rather daring experience. Women seem prettier and more gentle and feminine than today, despite our clumpy uniforms and it never, ever crosses our minds that we might lose the war.


Despite working between two aerodromes, we see little of service personnel and joke is that if Ford fails to shoot down enemy aircraft, Tangmere obliges! Compared with SOE, our war is safe and easy although we do work extremely hard and with very limited leave compared with the armed services. But, with the Merchant Navy, we are constructive and feed the nation. On the coast we are issued with tin hats which are never used and we can plot the course of the pilotless planes before they crash and estimate where their bombs will fall. In our nursery our great danger comes after the war when coastal mines are blown up but, although they shudder, the glass never splinters and the greenhouses survive.

Mainly we grow tomatoes and do well with ridge cucumbers. We hoe acres of sugar beet for which we receive a government subsidy. Our produce is collected by a pony and cart (which sometimes doubles as a hearse) and is driven to Barnham Station. We have problems; however, as the pony is circus trained and curtsies wildly round the yard before being eased into the shafts. It then rockets off up Lake Lane to the station. Sometimes at harvest time we help the farmers on the ricks and slice rats, as they rush out of the corn, with spades. But humping bales of straw is exceptionally heavy work for women. In due course I acquire lice and have the best baths of a lifetime in a tin tub filled by a hose from the kitchen copper with Chummy, the collie dog, for company. Most dogs in wartime seem to be called Chummy.

VE Day is a fresh, lovely morning. The war in Europe is over just as last night’s wireless bulletins predicted. I climb the water tower and unfurl the Union Jack. A huge cheer goes up from the farm opposite and people hang out of the windows of a passing train and wave and the guard unfurls a Union flag from his window. All up Lake Lane people hang out flags and bunting saved for this moment. At 3pm we go over to the Scotsman’s farm to hear Mr. Churchill broadcast and to play with a kitten called RAF. We stop work at 4pm and there are bonfires and dancing in the lane and everyone goes crazy with joy and relief. I wander across the fields with the red setter and sit on a style for a while to try and take it all in, with mixed feelings of sadness and happiness...

The war was a unique slot in our lives and hope was the essence of the present and our fortification for the future. Sadly, the 2 minutes silence on the 11th of the 11th month at 11.OOam disappeared but is hopefully to be revived before Armistice Day loses its significance. The younger generation need to know how dearly their freedom was bought.

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