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I joined the Women’s Land Army (WLA) on April 5, 1943, straight from school and witnessed the changes from traditional farming methods, where everything was done by hand, to the mechanical business it is today. When I joined there were twelve hands including the Land Girls to run a 300 acre farm.

It was a mixed farm, arable, cattle, mainly for fattening pigs, sheep and market gardening, a load of vegetables being sent to Portsmouth every week, a double load at Christmas, when all hands were put to picking sprouts, and trimming leaks--nothing mechanical there! We had three horses, Tinker, Ginger and Prince, who died in the shafts--a time-honoured method of getting a horse up was to pour water into its ear, but it didn’t work with poor old Prince. There was no local farrier, so the horses were shod by a scruffy individual who arrived on a bicycle--cold shoeing, it was called.

The men lived in tied cottages, rent 5/- per week, and after a day’s work, gardens were enthusiastically tended, producing substantial crops with the help of the privy!

We had the first combine harvester in the area, thus doing me out of my job on the binder seat. I must be the only person who has ridden through Chichester on a ‘Dig For Victory’ parade on the seat of said binder!

When we needed extra help with potato picking etc, apart from the man’s wives, we had help from hostel girls and German and Italian prisoners. To begin with the latter always had an armed guard, soon done away with as none of them wanted to escape. The Germans, one of whom was only 16, were good workers. When the sun shone, the Italians tended to drift away to the nearest ditch, preferably with one of the hostel girls. For many years I had a willow basket made by said Italian for 20 cigarettes.

The first thing I was taught was how to milk, thus relieving Sid the cowman so that he could have a holiday. The milk was used to fatten calves bought at market, as well as pigs, who became hysterical at the clank of a bucket (this was long before plastic ones).

The farm was situated on a peninsular opposite Thorney Island, an RAF base. One day the body of an airman was found by the creak, and put in a lane-side shed to await collection by the authorities. The cows had to pass the shed on the way to be milked, and there was immediate consternation. They could obviously smell death. I gave the place the widest possible berth.

We had three tractors for field work, a Fordson Ferguson and a Massey-Harris. We also had the first tractor-drawn mechanical planter, used mainly for leeks and cabbages, planting two rows at a time, four of us girls operating it. No thought was given to the fumes we inhaled daily, nor was there any cover. If it rained, we got wet! When I started on the farm, all hoeing was done by hand, but latterly we had a tractor drawn hoer which did four rows at a time. I also saw what must have been one of the last steam ploughs used to break up the sub-soil. Two steam engines at opposite ends up the field, with the plough pulled from side to side on a cable.

As for the present, the farm buildings have been converted into ‘dwellings’, no animals, flat acre after flat acre. No hay or straw ricks, waiting to be threshed, but happy memories of a poor era, the laughter and fun we had. There is so much more to tell!

Now my mates mostly lie in Chidham churchyard, next to the farm where they spent their lives, and where I hope one day to join them. Bless you Sid, Bert, Bill, Will, Reg, Tim, Alf, Jen, Pat, Marge and me--the last one left.

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