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This story was added to the website on behalf of Margaret Turner by Joanne with Margaret’s permission.

At the beginning of the war I worked on the buses. I loved this job but did not like the early starts of 4.15am. I was young and wanted to be out on a night and yet when I did this I could not get up for work on a morning. My Mum would say ‘you are not going out tonight, lady’ but I still would.

So, eventually I joined the land army with my sister, Ivy. At first we were doing things like weeding wheat fields and chopping hedges down, sometimes someone would have a digger for the hedges and the boss always thought we had done it by hand.

Ivy and I were initially based in a hostel at Wetherby. However we kept staying out after lock-up and would have to knock on the blackout boards on the windows for one of the girls to let us in. We tore our trousers climbing through the windows. Eventually, we got caught sneaking in through the windows after lock-up and so we were separated. Ivy got the best deal she was sent to Doncaster but I was sent to Peterborough, working the fen lands.

In Peterborough there were Italian and German prisoners of war working in the next field. The prisoners of war were dressed in maroon tops and trousers so we knew who they were. Me and my friend Kathleen used to talk to them and they would sing songs to us, usually ‘south of the border down Mexico way’. They called me Margarita and my friend Kathleen, Katerina and made up rhymes and sang to us.

We went to work on bikes but the prisoners of war were taken to and from work in a truck. Sometimes they would pass us on the road and lean over and try and snatch our hats off as we peddled along. We showed them our lunch that was prepared in the hostel kitchen, usually bread spread with dripping and crisps, there were always plenty of crisps. They asked us to get them some crisps and so we did. They had not hurt us and they were someone’s lads.

There were great times and I enjoyed it in the land army however I was sent to one farm by myself and was helping the farmer. When it was lunchtime I sat to eat my lunch and the farmer came to eat his. He told me to sit next to him on the haystack and kept patting the space next to him and saying ‘sit next to me’. I did not. I knew what he was after.

I was also trained to catch rats in the land army. For two weeks I was posted to Eastbourne and had to leave bread out spread with zinc phosphate. Unfortunately it seemed to be more cats that were caught by this than any rats.

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