大象传媒

This contribution to WW2 People's War was received by the Action Desk on 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk. The story has been written and submitted to the website by Jane Bradbury (Volunteer Story Gatherer) with the full permission and on behalf of Milly Smith.

When I first started as a Land Army girl I was seventeen and a quarter but I should have been seventeen and a half but I wasn't, I told a lie, but I got in. I went to Norwich to join, there was no medical required. I had to pick up my uniform afterwards from the same building (in Christchurch Road?) - corduroy breeches, green pullover, a hat, dungarees, smock and overcoat, socks, two short sleeved shirts, shoes and wellies (black) and an enamel cap badge. Later on we were issued with a green beret. You could wear your own clothes when you weren't working. They were all issued free-you had to be fitted for them. You had your own underwear.
I went to Mattishall (Heath Farm). I biked five miles there and five miles back. Some of the girls lived in the farmhouse but I was the only one on this particular farm. There were Polish prisoners of war with me-they were driven out every day from Weston camp. I was in the lorry one day with a Polish prisoner of war and he said,"Joseph loves Milly, Milly no loves Joseph?" I said no but the lorry driver said, "You want to hang on to him, he has plenty of money!"
The farmer and his wife had two children (boys, school age). I used to smoke forty cigarettes a day and one of the children said,"Why do you smoke?" and I replied,"To warm my nose".
I was unloading a load of sugar beet tops on the meadow, ready for the cows. I got the last forkful and the horse saw the other horses leading off up the lane and it bolted and flung me off with the fork (four tines) in my hand. Fortunately I fell on my feet!
A team man (he looks after the horses) was going up the road with a horse and cart with a load of muck and he stopped the horse and said, "You've done that job before". I said,"No, it's the first time". He said, "No, there ent many people can twist their wrist the same time as spreading it". (I was spreading muck from a heap, you used to get a halfpenny a heap. (Corn was grown in the field)
I got thirty eight shillings a week when I first started-the farmer paid out every Saturday morning. I gave a pound to my mother and had to clothe myself with the rest. I had to take my own food-sandwiches (spam, corned dicky (beef), cold tea). I had 'ninesies', and dinner time. I started at 6.30 am from home, work at 7am and finish at 4pm. When double summertime came in (harvest time) we started at 7am and finished at 11pm.
We were thrashing. I was on the straw stack and I came down and had to go back up the ladder again and I couldn't reach the top, the ladder wasn't long enough. I stood on tiptoes and the ladder went out to the left. I dropped down dead straight, just missed the iron wheel (the pitcher) by half an inch. A poor old guy stood there and said,"God girl,you're lucky you're alive".
I had the tendons in my foot taken out in 1949, went back to work on the land when it was better. I started work in service when war broke out-I hated it. I was 25 when I married-he was a lorry driver's mate. I met him on my way to and from work.

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