大象传媒

This contribution to WW2 People's War website was received by the Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk, with the permission and on behalf of Patricia Durrant, and submitted to the website by the Wymondham Learning Centre.

When war broke out I was living in Romford in Essex. People we knew were joining the Land Army so my friend Clarice and I, who鈥檇 been mates since we were two, decided to join as well. We were sent to Colchester for a short while to start with, picking beans and beet. That was a horrible job.

Once a few of us were in a field and looked up to see a dogfight between American German planes. We saw a parachute come down and ran to help the man in it. We couldn鈥檛 tell what nationality he was because he was so badly burnt. We pulled wooden spikes from the field and made a stretcher, covered him with his parachute and carried him to the farmhouse. We thought he would die. But he did survive. He was an American, and five years ago, in 2000, he came back to Colchester to thank the land girls.

Another plane came down the following day, but this time the pilot got out and walked away. It was a small reconnaissance plane and the pilot had been filming over Germany. It had probably run out of fuel. We were told to keep away so I imagine it had sensitive photos on board.

Then we were sent to West Mersea. There were about thirty girls billeted in a big hall.

Clarice and I both volunteered to do pest control. We were given bikes. We had a long stick with a little spoon at one end, tins of feed and tins of poison, hung about the frame. We went out on a twenty-mile radius, going three times a week to places where there were rats. On the first two visits we left food for them, and on the third poison.

Once we were putting poison down at a farm, and both needed to 鈥渟pend a penny.鈥� We put our poison tins down and went behind the barn. When we came back we saw that some piglets had found the tins, got their lids off and had their snouts in them. Poison was being shaken all over the place. We were terrified that the piglets would die. We cleaned the area up as best we could and never went back!

We had to go around the perimeter of the local American base. The Americans sometimes invited us in for a meal, and gave us all the chocolate, bananas and oranges we could eat. They鈥檇 also invite us to dances at the base, which had a Glenn Miller band. It was wonderful.

I went back home in about November 1944, because my mother, who was a widow, was alone and my youngest brother Gerald had been reported missing in action, I think at Anzio. Another brother, Wilfred, was with the Pathfinders and his plane was reported missing. My oldest brother Leslie, who was in the RAF in Egypt, had been reported seriously ill. All the telegrams reporting this bad news arrived close together.

Leslie recovered and came home from the war, but Wilfred never returned. His death is recorded in the book of remembrance at Lincoln Cathedral, and by the War Graves Commission at Runnymede: Flight Officer Wilfred James Cowen, 97 Squadron RAF Volunteer Reserves, died aged 32 on Saturday the 11th of November, 1944.

Gerald was taken prisoner by the Germans and was on the forced march across Europe. When he came home, the whole street put banners up, and when he was spotted coming down the road everyone came out to greet him, offering him beer. His stomach had shrunk so much he couldn鈥檛 drink it. He was so thin we were told to start feeding him baby food.

He finished up marrying my friend and fellow land girl Clarice, and they now live in Australia.

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