大象传媒

I volunteered to join the Women鈥檚 Land Army (WLA) in 1942. At my interview I was asked if I would consider joining the Timber Corps (a branch of the WLA) under the direction of the Forestry Commission. I agreed to this. I waited a few weeks and I had my call-up letter. In the meantime my uniform arrived. The only difference to the WLA was that we had to wear a green beret and all our insignias were WTC, and we wore two crossed axes on the coat sleeve.

It was cold on Boxing Day 1942--when my father accompanied a friend and myself to Paddington Station. He saw us on the train and we puffed out of the station on the way to Hereford, then changed to a local train to a small villaged called Eardisley about five miles from town. We were seventeen years of age and it was a bit scary not knowing anyone or where we were going. We ended up in billet with a lovely family and ended up working in a saw-mill in this tiny village. (We had no previous training.) We were working with internees, Finns, Poles and Belgians and we were taught how to measure and stack timber which was machined and cut by the males. They couldn鈥檛 speak English and we weren鈥檛 conversant with any of their languages, but we got by. The main product of the mills was coffin boards and we were there for two years. (We cadged lifts to Town, bunking off early to catch the telephone engineer鈥檚 lorry to give us a lift to Town-twice a week).

Then suddenly in the fields behind the mill, there was a lot of action. Huts going up--lorries arriving, plenty of activity and one morning when we arrived at work, we were greeted by the G.I.s who were situated in them. Mostly coloured Americans, we couldn鈥檛 believe our eyes and nor could they seeing young teenagers doing manual work like us. Anyway, by this time there were three of us at the mill and they used to help us, and eventually the chap who owned the mill, after warning us that we weren鈥檛 working as hard as we should, told us he was asking for our transfer to somewhere else. Then we were posted to a hostel in Hereford Town. What bliss!

Although the accommodation was basic we were with lots of girls our own age. 大象传媒 consisted of being driven by lorry at 6am to sites on the outskirts of Town-- Brecon Beacons, Black Mountains, etc--and we were taught to hook horses up to great logs which had been felled by lumberjacks, then to a clearing where we had to measure the trees and cut them up with crosscut saws (no electric tools) one girl on each end. We made mostly pit props, wood wool and strips of hazel to be made into sorts of mats for the landing crafts to get up the beaches.

It was a hard, tough life. We developed muscles in places that we never knew about, but the camaraderie amongst the girls and Armed Forces, British and G.I.s and Italian Prisoners of War was wonderful. I am very pleased I had the opportunity to be part of it. I hope that in some small way we contributed towards the victory, which OH BOY! did we celebrate. There is lots more instances that I could record but it would take forever. To sum up although it was a dreadful war, I was very grown up when I headed back to Stepney in London four years later.

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