´óÏó´«Ã½

In 1943 I volunteered to join the Women’s Land Army. It seemed a very hit & miss affair, hurrying off to a small office at lunchtime to be interviewed. I was asked whether I wished to farm or garden (the latter) and was then measured against a wall with a ruler for my uniform.

A few weeks later I arrived at an agricultural college, ex male students, for four weeks training. It was a good start and after family rations we were well fed! The agricultural girls had early morning duties, but sometimes the horticulture ones had to help out. It was a big surprise on having a farm opened to find a large farm horse just inside awaiting his grooming! I felt very small beside this gentle beast.

From there I was sent to a village to work in private gardens large enough to warrant help with growing fruit and vegetables. Several girls were employed around the area. Billeting was hit and miss. I was taken to my first one to find my landlady on the doorstep eager to be off to evening service — she left me to find my way indoors. I slept on the top of a Morrison bomb shelter (indoors)! Later another girl and I stayed briefly with a lady who suddenly departed for hospital. I then went to a kindly family — but at night had fire duty to do in the local rota. Not surprisingly this enterprise ended after my first year and we all moved to commercial gardening.

I went to a market garden and worked indoors among sheds and glasshouses sewing, growing and marketing tomatoes, and a few cucumbers. Side shooting the plants was a continuous and very dirty job and they (and our clothes) smelt like cats! Once the crop had got going we ‘picked’ every other day, including Sunday mornings every other week. I never did (or do) like tomatoes, but one day I had a reprieve. The foreman asked me to water the cucumber house. While I was contentedly doing this another doodle bug came along, cut it’s engine and dropped nearby. The explosion didn’t blow in the glass, but the cucumbers, almost full grown, wayed on their vines towards me, and gently back again.

Later I had a spell outdoors remembered chiefly for potato picking and backache.

The next market garden’s acreage made it obligatory under wartime policy to include a certain amount of corn growing. At harvest time therefore we worked in the evenings stacking the cut wheat, a change from daytime caring for vegetables.

After a short time in a small garden working from home at the end of the war I had the opportunity to take a horticultural course in Wales. This I did and enjoyed it very much.

Overall in spite of some trying times I never regretted volunteering for the Land Army and enjoyed the experiences I wouldn’t otherwise have had. A family friend remarked that had I been in the army I would probably have been court marshalled for dumb insolence!

Bertha Staines

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.