大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Ann Eade. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

LINES ON THE LAND
My name is Ann Eade and I was eighteen years old at the beginning of the war.

In 1939 I joined the Women鈥檚 Land Army in Hampshire as a tractor driver and general farm worker.

The following extracts come from an article I wrote during that time. Whilst working on the farm I found that one theme repeated itself in nearly every aspect of farm work. It is best described as the theme of the straight line and gives an idea of my life during those war years.

October was the beginning of the year when the crops were sown. We cleaned the fields and left them to lie disconsolate to the chilly sky. Next it was time to plough, always working against the weather, the farmer demanding the best possible work in the shortest space of time. Fortunately, my farmer inclined towards the first of these essentials, thus I could draw my lines carefully and evenly across the field. The straighter the lines, the less time spent on short work. When each furrow was correct in depth and angle, and an exact copy of its fellows, the work was really well done. Cultivating, harrowing and rolling were largely a question of straight lines, methodically drawn over a large area. There was momentary pride in straightening the crooked line.

The 鈥淒ung Spreading Moon鈥� waxed, and we spread muck from raw dawn to chilly eve. The dung heaps lay in long straight lines, and correct spreading involved an imaginary square round each heap, every inch of which should be covered. Whilst at this job when the ground was white with snow, I had as companions a flock of cock chaffinches. As I spread each brown heap over its allotted square of snow, I uncovered for them a larder of good things, for which I was amply repaid by the unforgettable picture of these bright birds set against the brown and white ground in the wintry sunlight.

Sometimes I accompanied the carter with his horses to bring in a load of hay. It must be loaded square, for without full confidence that it would not slip half way, I could not enjoy my bumpy ride home. Except for occasional strands of hay tickling my nose, as I lay with my knees up, gazing at the sky, this was a perfect moment during farm work. Another was the joy of watching a well鈥攕et plough turning over ever lengthening lines of brown earth.

The year drew on, the crops were drilled in, and weeds and sugar beet grew apace. So the horse 鈥� hoe set to work, and now the job was not to draw lines but to follow them. How intriguing it was to watch the thin line of seedlings running undisturbed through the knives, whilst the thistles and other weeds were uprooted. My arms were aching, will the row never end, but never must I waver or the line might be broken.

The harvest was on us, the binder with methodical ruthlessness threw out the sheaves in ever lessening circles. When the sheaves were fit to carry, sometimes I worked with the loads, somtimes on the hayrick, and once I built an oat hayrick myself, perhap not as square as I would have wished, but it did not, like some I have seen, have to be propped. It was threshed now and forgotten, but not by me!

The dynamo hum of summer was running down. The fields were fast turning brown as the tractor and the horses crept slowly up and down. The whole year鈥檚 work on the farm seemed woven round the tracing of straight lines 鈥� lines across the fields 鈥攍ines in the solid squares of loads and ricks 鈥� lines in the scarcely discernable tracks of root crops. It was man鈥檚 effort to bring nature鈥檚 profusion into orderly cultivation, to bring the infinite circle into the finite and tangible line.

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