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The author of this story has agreed that it can be entered on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ website. I started as a land girl working at Horton Estate Farms in March, 1943, along with my twin sister. We were first billeted at the YMCA, West Street, Epsom, Surrey. My sister and I were the first girls to work at Horton. We chose to work here as we were paid. We started at Home Farm for six months and learned how to hand milk cows- moved to Long Grove, which is now Horton. The cows had been tied by the neck all winter and were full of fleas, so when we bent our heads and rested on the cows bodies……………….! After we had learnt how to use the milking machines, we were moved to the Land Army hostel at Longrove Farm (now a rare breeds and children’s farm), and given 20 cows each to take care of. There were nine of us living in the hostel, including Vera Crouch, Joyce Derbyshire, Flora Magee, Enid Wallace?, Olive Hughes (who still lives in Epsom) and Eileen? We were looked after in the hostel by a house keeper and two maids who were patients from the nearby West Park Hospital. We had our own butter and sugar rations which we kept in jars. There was always a queue for the bathroom — we often bathed together as hot water was limited. The girls worked with the cows, drove the tractor and worked with the horses and with the crops. They also did the dairy work, sterilizing the machines and drums in a big steam chest. Milk was carried in buckets from the cow sheds to a big drum and from there it ran over a water-cooled corrugated cooler and into churns in the dairy. The drums were covered over with muslin to catch any dirt that inevitably fell in from outside. If it rained, the milk got diluted. One girl drove the milk lorry collecting the churns of milk which held 17 gallons, collecting from the other farms and taking them to the hospitals The girls also reared the calves, the cows were Ayreshires with big horns. We reared them on milk, then on linseed gruel; the linseed came in big compressed sheets which had to be cobbled in a machine then boiled. When the calves were weaned, they were sent to another farm at Farmfield for a couple of years, returning as milking heifers.

In the summer, we were taken out in lorries after finishing milking to help with hay making. We learnt to build ricks and silage was made in concrete towers. We also went stoking? And hoed vegetables. One summer when grass and feed was short, we put the hundred strong Ayreshires into a plum orchard to finish off the grass. The plums had fallen off the trees and rotted. When we came to fetch the cows for milking, we had a job getting them moving — we realised they were drunk! The plum orchard (now a part of Horton golf coarse was some distance away so it took a long time to walk them up Horton Lane. Now and again we would here a plop, plop. Whilst chewing the cud, plum stones were being passed and dropping into their mangers.

One night, the milk lorry parked which was parked in the barn, caught fire. Our door was never locked and an army officer rushed up the stairs to raise the alarm. When nine girls emerged from the bedroom in their nightclothes, he fled leaving us to extinguish the fire. We managed to do this before the hospital fire brigade arrived on the scene. We didn’t know what to do the next day about collecting the milk and remembered a pony that had been impounded from the gypsies. This we harnessed onto a cleaned out dung cart, one of the girls volunteered to drive it to the next farm at West Park. As she left the farmyard, twelve RAF men from the nearby rehabilation centre at Chessington, went riding by on bicycles. The pony bolted and knocked most of the men into a ditch. These men were recovering from polio and could not mount a bicycle very easily and had to have assistance. It was a struggle for us girls to get them mounted and sent on their way. Their Commandant heard of this and asked us to the dances at Chessington. Many of the men were in irons or stomach belts and strong girls were needed to help if and when they collapsed!

In the winter of 1947 it was extremely cold — so cold that we put the rugs from the floor on our beds to keep warm. One evening we ran out of fuel for our lounge fire. We remembered seeing a large pile of coke which ran the laundry at West Park. We collected sacks and trudged through the snow and collected some coke. We didn’t need to tell anyone of our exploits — we had left black footprints in the snow which led right back to us! On one particular night we were awoken by screams coming from a lorry which was parked between the two barns. We telephoned the police, then in our night clothes, rushed to get pitch forks from the cowshed. The police had already arrived by the time we reached the lorry and had dealt with the soldiers who were having their wicked way with nurses from the hospital. I don’t know what we would have done with the pitchforks if the police hadn’t arrived.
We all took turns at fire watching when the raids were on and when the V1 and V11 rockets were coming over, anybody working in the big greenhouses had to wear a helmet and a girl stood outside with a whistle to warn them. Quite a few girls from Epsom came in daily to work in the market gardens. Many friendships were formed and for many years, I held re-unions at my farm in Newdigate.
We all worked hard — a 54 hour week plus overtime in summer, but we also played hard. The nearby Horton hospital had been taken over by the military and we girls had a great time going to the dances and shows there. If we had a date and was short of something to wear or had no clothing coupons to spare, we borrowed off one another. For some of us, it was the best time of our lives.

I organised a grand re-union at Horton Farm in 1997, to which the men were invited.. Thirty seven of us attended, including people from abroad .

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