大象传媒

When I was in the Leicestershire and Rutland Women's Land Army in the early 1940's, some of the time I worked as 'band cutter' for Mr. Arthur Story and his son Mr. Bill Story of 'The Firs' Barrowden, Rutland. They, two more workmen and I threshed the corn for most of the neighbouring farmers for a radius of over twelve to fifteen miles or so in and around the villages. A steam engine was used to pull the threshing drum and 'straw jack' as well as to supply the power to drive them for the actual threshing process. Mr. Story and Bill were so proud of their steam engines, polishing and cleaning them every spare moment they had when threshing at the various farms they visited, till the brass bands and fittings shone like burnished gold and copper.

Once when designing a programme cover for one of the County Rallies, as I was the voluntary artist for the Leicestershire and Rutland Women's Army, I illustrated it with a threshing scene where a steam engine was 'being used' instead of a tractor, which Mr. Story and Bill thought was most appropriate.

We threshed in all weathers except in the wind when the staw and sheaves blew about too much and in the rain, when the broad leather driving belt kept sticking and slipping from the engine's pulley wheel, with a series of clapping sounds as it slowed down. Looking after the belt was one of my various jobs, having to roll it up, slowly and carefully, in a perfectly straight line each evening after work, to be put away in the dry next morning.

Also every evening, before the huge drum was covered for the night with its heavy flapping canvas, I used to sweep it down, ridding it of all the loose grain, chaff and haulms which had collected during the day's threshing. I can still hear the continuous hum, hum, hum of the beaters and the sharp staccato clattering of the last few grains of corn as I swept them into the open drum, where they spun crazily about for a moment or two, with a noise like the rattle of fairy gunfire, before disappearing out of sight into the drum's interior.

Sometimes we might happen to work at a farm which was near North Luffenham Aerodrome. From my place on top of the drum, when dusk was beginning to fall around five o'clock on a winter's evening, I could count the 'plane as one by one, they rose higher from the runway starting off on some dangerous mission across the Channel.

Then in the morning, when the air was still except for the noise of the threshing operations, I would watch the 'planes returning, as automatically I cut the binder string after binder string on each sheaf as it was thrown to me from the corn stack, gathering the cut string's knots together until they resembled a fluffy shaving brush in my hand.

Some of the 'planes did not return. Some came back haltingly or on one engine and sometimes as I counted them, there was the same number as went out the previous evening.

"Ah! That's a good thing," Mr. Story would reply;when I pointed out to him they had all returned. "Good boys - bet they gave Hitler something to think about." Then he would most likely turn round to the helpers on the corn stack, the sound of his voice mingling with the roar of the engine's beaters, "come on hurry up! We've got to be finished this stack by dinner-time, reaady to move to the next fram."

So it went on, a few days here, a week or two there, helping in our small way to keep the country stocked with flour and bread - on sharp frosty mornings when the air was crisp and the sky above us, as we stood on the drum, was a clear bright blue and in the fog and drizzle, when the thick, clogging dust from the sheaves 'pult hole' surrounded us like a pall, clammy corn stalks numbing our finger ends with cold, so that we were thankful we were with the steam engine in order to warm our chilled hands near its hissing, spitting boiler.

As Rutland (before becoming part of Leicestershire), was the smallest county in England, occasionally in one week we would be working in four counties, that is, Rutland, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.

When working in Northamptonshire, instead of travelling to Harringworth, for example, by car, Mr. Story and I drove to work in a high-backed cart. This was pulled by his faithful old pony, Kit, who was still strong and lively although she had been bought in the First World War.

When I happened to be working with Bill at the Nosely Estate farms in Leicestershire and the wartime petrol allowance did not stretch for the required number of miles for us to travel there by car to that far off village, we had to cycle there from Barrowden - one very long ride! However, it was more tiring cycling back to Barrowden, especially in the 'black out', but Bill's wife Mary, always had an appetizing meal waiting for us when we returned to 'The Firs' after a long day's work.

The threshing season came to an end before the summer. So that when those thunderous giants, the steam engines, along with their drums and straw jacks retired to their sheds, to be overhauled until the threshing season once returned, when they would again take their places as 'kings of the road and field' in wartime Rutland and neighbouring counties.

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