大象传媒

My Life in World War 2( cont)

When I recovered from jaundice, I was sent to Shropshire where life was as I'd expected it to be when I joined up.On the first day my house mate Marjorie and I were picked up from the front gate by a lorry with a hlf cover of canvas on the back. This was full of friendly girls and as we made our way through the beautiful countryside we sang romantic ballads and such wartime classics as Run Rabbit Run all the way to work. That day there was a white frost so it wasn't warm an the back of the lorry, but I knew things were looking up. Eventually we arrived at the wood where I had my introduction to the work. There were men tree fellers, a boy, Charlie who took charge of the horses wich pulled the tree trunks out into a clearing for us to saw up. I was soon taught how to use a crosscut saw with a mate or a bushman saw on my own, as wellas a billhook for chopping up brush wood, known as brash. This we used ti light the fire, which not only burnt the brash, but boiled the all important billy can for our tea. While we drank tea at mid morning, I began to find out who was who. We had a ganger a girl from just over the Welsh border, who was in charge from day to day, as well as a foreman who only appeared from time to time as he supervised a large area.One girl drove a Caterpillar tractor over the very bumpy woodland floor to move the logs around; She was an East Londoner who made us laugh alot but the tractor driving wasn't good for her health. Amongst our number, we had a Russian also from London and a beautiful Lithuanian girl who won the "Most lovely eyes" competition at the local fete. Later in the winter the wood became a bog after heavy rain and it bacme impossible to transport the pit props which were our main products, to the loading place by the road. So a narrow railway track was laid and a little loco arrived with some trucks. When they asked for a volunteer to drive my friend Marjorie offered so i agreed to be her mate. What a lot of adventures we had with that loco. It was reluctant to start on winter mornings and we acquired many bruises when the starting handle kicked back at us. Once started, we chugged along merrily to pick up ourloads, until either the loco or the trucks , or even worse, both, became derailed. this happened often as the track was rather uneven owing to the terrain, so everyone had to join in the task of getting us back on the rails. Often we were working up to our calves in water , which wasn't funny as the Wellington boots issued to us had holes patched not very successfully, with cycle patches so we always had wet feet.There were Italian prisoners of war working on nearby farms, all equipped with brand new Wellingtons; they also had brand new bikes supplied, whereas we had to pay to bring our own from home, if we had a bike at all. So we were aggrieved about these injustices and didn't feel friendly towards the Italians who wolf whistled us as our lorries passed eachother. We did have many enjoyable times thoughmeeting soldiers from a local camp at dances, not to mention airmen of various nationalities when we moved to a different wood near their air field. Som e of them became good friends and we were invited to their dances . Some Americans arrived, preceded by horror stories from other parts of Shropshire where many girls had babies by these better dressed and richer men, but the ones we met were well behaved, especially the black ones who were good dancers and very pleasant. Once we organised our own " Woodchoppers Ball" to which came many n=black Americans, and one stopped in the middle of the dance floor when I told him what we did for our war effort." Imagine that" he said, "Women wood chopping!"

One day the foreman came to the wood accompnied by a man who turned out to be from the 大象传媒.We all chattered away to him and it turned out he was looking for a girl to take part in programme called Country Magazine to tell the world what we did.

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