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In 1942 I joined the Women’s Land Army. I was very young and naive and had a lot to learn about life. I had never been outside Lancashire and the thought of joining was a great adventure.
I think the attractive uniform appealed to me, as I had no previous experience of country life. I applied for a job in horticulture as farming didn’t attract me too much. Probably as I had a fear of cows.
I was sent, along with many other Lancashire girls, down to Corsham in Wiltshire, where there was a great deal of activity going on below ground. Very hush hush.
We joined many tough Irish labourers in back breaking work, clearing boulders and rocks, spreading soil and sewing grass seed in an effort to camouflage the surfaces above ground. Unfortunately for me with my red hair, I was relentlessly pursued with cries of ‘Ginger’ from our Irish colleagues wherever I worked.
One by one, the girls fell by the wayside, not literally of course. There was much complaining of aching backs. The heaving of rocks and pushing heavy wheelbarrows was just too much for these ex factory, office of shop girls. I stuck it for one month and then asked to be transferred to real horticulture.
The H.O.M. Mrs. Methuen, who was our W.L.A. local organiser, sent me to Rudloe Manor, the headquarters of No.12 R.A.F. Fighter Group. There I worked with the head gardener and three other girls, growing vegetables and fruit for the camp. The more exotic fruits, peaches and nectarines, going to the Officers Mess.
I was billeted at Ivy House in the village, the home of our organiser, along with an assortment of Army and R.A.F. Officers, W.A.A.F.’s and two other Land Girls. We girls were put in the attic bedrooms. Whether this befitted our lowly station in life, or because we were so fit and healthy, we didn’t know.
I bought an ancient bicycle for five pounds and rode the two or three miles to the camp every day, after rising at 0600. We had all our meals at the camp and were often watched with amazement and envy, by the R.A.F. Personnel, at the large meals we consumed. We were always hungry.
One of my memories of early morning work in winter, was picking frozen sprouts in the dark, listening to the mournful cry of a local owl. I have never liked sprouts since.
We must have appeared to be a motley crew as we dug, hoed raked and harvested, wearing our dungarees, head scarves, many jumpers, and in my case, a pair of clogs provided by my father for the muddy ground. Our boss, Mr. Sherwood, a local man, had very left wing political views, and while we worked, we discussed all kinds of subjects. I would go home on leave and regale my parents with ‘all this socialist rubbish’. My father, ‘a True Blue Tory' was horrified.
During the summer months we cut down our old dungarees and made shorts. I don’t know what effect all those sunburned legs had on our boss, as we paraded up and down the rows of vegetables. He lived a rather lonely life as a widower with a schoolgirl daughter.
The war itself, brought heartache and separation from loved ones, (my own fiance was serving in Africa), shortages, ‘Blackouts’ each night and of course, the horror of the Blitz. I experienced this when I spent my Christmas leave in Manchester. My brother in the R.A.F. was killed in 1940 and another brother was in the Merchant Navy on Atlantic and Russian Convoy duties.
I look back on my Land Army days with pleasure. It was a worthwhile job and it instilled in me, a great love of the countryside.

B.J. Hall.
Bolton. Lancashire.

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