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A FEW MEMORIES FROM JOYCE AND HER HUSBAND

Joyce’s husband is telling the story on their behalf.

Joyce was born in 1923, and at the age of 18 she decided to join the Land Army, and went to Cadburys farm at Lickey Hills. She was initially cleaning out ditches and doing tree work. Then after a while they posted her down to Pershore and they stayed in a big mansion called Avon Bank. All the rooms were allocated to Land girls and that is where they were billeted.

Each day she cycled to the farm, where she met my Mother who was working on the same farm, and that’s how we met. I came home on leave and went to see them, and there were about ten of these girls in a beetroot field, and she was one of the ten. I wrote to her and it was another 10 months before we met again.

One day they gave me a 48hr pass to say goodbye to my loved ones, because I was going on a secret mission behind enemy lines, and she still waited for me. During D-Day it all happened to me. I got shot 3 times, and wounded in the head and my family had the telegram message to say that I was either wounded, killed or taken prisoner.

Eventually they found out that I had been wounded and they came to Burrton Wood near Lichfield, to the hospital where I had been sent. It was October by the time I got better. One of the wounds I received took my knuckle off, and I lost such a lot of blood. I was under a parachute for four days in Normandy and had to put my own tourniquet on my arm!.

I was sent back to the U.K on May 20th and we got married on June 9th 1945. We celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary this year. Our wedding reception was very simple just the usual cakes, not a lot. I know I nicked a couple of tins of sugar from the Army! And I borrowed a couple of parachutes to hang up in the hall to give it a ‘bit of a do’.

Four days after our honeymoon I was sent to Palestine. The British Government made the frontier line to keep the Israelis from going into Palestine. I had to do a curfew, and we walked back to back down the street to contain the Palestinians.
I was promoted to a sergeant whilst I was there.

I came back at Christmas and the Army wanted me to train National Service men.
It was a big job. Some of the boys hadn’t left their Mothers before. Not like I did at 16 years of age.

I was demobbed in 1948 because by then we had a daughter.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by June Woodhouse (volunteer) of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Mr and Mrs Johnson (authors) and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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