大象传媒

When I was 14 I left school and was directed by the youth labour service to work under the essential work order at a dry cleaners pressing American servicemen鈥檚 trousers. I didn't consider this helped England at all. I found in life the only way to alter things is to take the lead yourself. I found myself employment at a local farm. It has long since gone and a junior school now stands on its site. Because I was only 14 years old, I wasn't entitled to protective clothing so I spent the years that followed the war with leaking boots and wet cloths often. The farm I worked on was a dairy farm. It had 21 cows that I was responsible for. The first day that I took them out to the fields they decided it was each cow for themselves and they went in every direction. I tried to round them up to get to the correct field. It was an impossible task. The farm manager came out to help me and the cows did immediately what they were told. I learnt the tasks I was told to do. The farmer had a motor van for one milk round. The second milk round he did himself with a horse and cart, a milk churn and various measures. People came out of their houses with jugs that he poured the milk in. In this way he completed his round. When he returned to the arm, it was my job to unload the churn and the measures and from the milk van that came in later, the crates of milk bottles. They consisted of half pints and quart bottles. These I had to wash. In the dairy there were 2 big tanks and a copper. I had to heat the hot water till boiling point and then transferred it to one of the tanks and filled the other with cold water. I had to rinse the bottles first then use the bottle brush to clean them in the hot tank and then transfer the bottles to the cold tank. Looking at every one of them to see if they were clean as the farm was inspected and then put them in drying racks. I hated this job. One day towards the end of the war, a doodle bug fell on Whitstable and the blast shattered every one of the bottles I had just washed. I stood looking at the broken glass and the wreaked dairy. The farmer and the manager came out to see if I was alright and fount a very irate teenager saying nasty things about Hitler. In the mornings I was often sleeping late and my mother would chase me so I would get to work on time at 6 O clocks.
If I was very late, I had to cut across the field instead of going along the road on my bike but if I did that. I had to clear a five bar gate at speed because in the last field was a horse that didn't like me. One morning I was a bit late in clearing the gate and the horse just took the seat of my ovals. The farmer leant me another pair. I was also responsible for the car of the ducks and chickens and cleaning out the shed where the cows where milked, cutting up animals food and general farm duties. In the harvest time I was often leant out to other farmers to help get the harvest in. The corn was stooked and we used pitch forks to throw it on the carts to take it in to be turned into hay stacks. These were thatch on top. So the work was freezing in the winter and hot in the summer but you had time to appreciate the beauty of Kent in the country side and to see and know the creatures there. When the war was over, I stayed on the farm till I was 17 and the started as a student nurse in the local hospital. There were some funny moments and some sad ones but at least I felt I had done something to aid the war effort. The only complaint I had was that I never got a pair of boots that didn't leak.

Iris Turner added with her permission is aware of what this story is used for.

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