大象传媒

This excerpt is taken from memories my mother compiled just prior to her death in 2002. She was born in Birmingham in 1918, the middle child of 3, to parents who ran a general store in the jewellery quarter of Hockley in the city. She left school at the age of fourteen without any qualifications, as so many did in those days, and trained as an enameller.

In May 1940 she decided to play her part in the war effort and, unbeknownst to her parents, joined the Land Army. Her story is taken up from this date.

鈥淚t was in May 1940 that I was asked to go to a farm at Blackwell, just outside Stratford鈥攐n-Avon. On a Sunday afternoon my Mother and Father went with me to the Bull Ring to see me off on a bus to Stratford. Mother shed a few tears as I was the second to leave home.

When I arrived at the bus depot in Stratford there was another girl in uniform who told me that she had been working at New Bridges already for a fortnight and that someone would come along to pick us up. Sure enough, along came a very dilapidated motor truck with R at the wheel. We all squashed into the cab and set off for New Bridges Farm.

On arrival we met R鈥檚 brother who took one look at me and I can imagine the thoughts going through his head. I am quite a short person (barely 5 feet tall) and at this time was also quite slim so I suppose they thought I wouldn鈥檛 be up to much, especially coming from a city with no experience of the countryside.

At New Bridges one brother looked after the shire horses, sheep and arable and the other the cows, pigs and poultry on the mixed, 250 acre farm. They also had a man working for them.

J and I were billeted in the village at the Post Office and we went backwards and forwards to the farm on bikes and as my first job was to daily pump gallons of water into a tank to cool the milk this meant an early start to get there ready for morning milking. We had all our meals at the farm, sharing the preparation of Breakfast, Tea and Supper but having Dinner prepared for us by a lady from the village.

In the billet I shared a bedroom with J and two other girls from another farm in the area. Washing facilities were very basic, just being a jug, washstand and basin in the corner of the room. You can imagine what it was like with 4 girls in a hurry in the morning!

The first week of work on the land was awful. Another job I had at this time was hoeing and thinning mangols. My poor back was breaking as I wasn鈥檛 used to the manual work but I was also learning to milk the cows and feed the pigs and hens. I just loved the stock side of farming.

At the end of the first week I decided that it wasn鈥檛 the life for me and that I would go home. However, while we were working together in the mangol field R asked if we two girls would like to go to the pictures with him. Would we just! I then decided to give farming another try.

I learnt such a lot about farming at New Bridges. In the Autumn the threshing machine would come along and we all had to lend a hand gathering the harvest. What dirty job that was with us all ending up filthy dirty from the dust. I was so pleased that we didn鈥檛 have to spend all day at it as there were still the cows to milk and pigs to feed.

Unfortunately, one day the pigs escaped and I had to chase them round until they were all back safely in their sty. I ended up puffed out much to the amusement of the man, who we all called Rose, on the farm. He told me that next time I was to rattle a bucket. Sure enough they escaped again so I tried the bucket trick. Lo and behold they all followed me in a line back into the sty!

Rose also showed me how to construct a proper muckle heap. I was just tipping the wheel barrow at the bottom of the heap when he approached me. 鈥淲ench, you鈥檒l soon be at the back door with that muck鈥�. He then showed me how to do it properly.

On dark mornings in winter it was quite a job to fetch in the cows from the fields. Being from the city lights I was quite frightened at being in the fields alone but I got used to it. I would wait until a cow coughed and then make my way over to the noise. Once one got up the others followed. Only people who work with animals know what comfort and warmth they can give to you in a cow shed on a cold winter鈥檚 morning.

By this time J had left so I was at the billet on my own. During November 1941 I went with most of the other village people up tot the top of a hill and watched the Coventry blitz. It was awful with the German aeroplanes circling all around and unloading their bombs on the city in the distance. There was a glow in the sky that marked Coventry for the planes to home in on.

The next day we were asked if we could lend a hand, after the essential farm work was done, to bake bread for the people of Coventry.

Once a week the two brothers had to go fire watching so they asked me to stay over at the farm to watch out for incendiary bombs. I wasn鈥檛 much good as I was so tired I fell asleep and they had to wake me up next day by hammering on the door!

I stayed at New Bridges Farm for over a year but after a disagreement with one of the brothers, who incidentally I was quite close to, in a fit of temper I applied for a transfer. I was sent to Gypsy Hall Farm at Wilmcote to work for a Mr and Mrs Carling; the bailiff of the farm.

Gypsy Hall was a much larger farm and had a pedigree herd of Ayrshire cattle. They had long horns and seemed to love jumping hedges. I can still remember the misty mornings that were a sure sign of another hot, summer鈥檚 day. My time at Gypsy Hall was very happy as we all got on so well.

Whilst at Gypsy Hall I managed to get a trip home to Birmingham to see my parents. During my visit there was a raid so we all went to the crypt of the church round the corner. By then my sister had married and had a baby girl. She was living at home as her husband was in the Grenadier Guards and my brother, returned from being evacuated to Wales, was also at home. By this stage of the war all the railings had been removed for melting down and consequently we just ran over the open graveyard to the crypt. My brother had the baby in his arms and just avoided falling into an open grave in the headlong rush for safety.

When we came out after the 鈥淎ll clear鈥� and saw all the fires raging it was at this point that all the misery of war came home to me. I had been enjoying my new life in the country and had hardly thought about the people suffering back at home. However, I had to get back to Gypsy Hall.

During the next few years I worked on several other farms until leaving the Land Army and I have many, many memories of these times. I never went back to the city and eventually, after getting married in 1950, moved to a small village, just outside Warwick, and brought up my two children here. I always look back on my time at Gypsy Hall as one of the happiest of my life.鈥�

Dedicated to the memory of Marjorie Ell (nee Shenton) 1918 鈥� 2002

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