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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Radio Northampton Action Desk on behalf of Margaret Lovelock and has been added to the site with her permission. Margaret Lovelock fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

When I went to join the Land Army I was really too young at 17, but the lady who was interviewing me asked me to grip the two fingers she held out and because I squeezed them so hard she said “Yes, that’s alright, you’ll make a milker”, and I was recruited.

During the summer, I had to get up at 5am to bring the cows in from the fields for milking. During the winter, because the cows stayed in overnight, they had to be fed first thing in the morning before the milking started.

They all had to have their udders and teats washed before the milking could begin, and then this was all done by hand into buckets. No modern machinery such as is used on today’s farms. Usually the cows were quite placid animals and seemed to enjoy music and singing, though occasionally they could be fidgety and nervous. On one such day I was kicked into the gutter in the cow shed and could not work for a fortnight due to concussion.

Following all this hard work with the cattle, at 9am we were given a break for breakfast.

After a while I was promoted to looking after the cart horse, and had to harness him. I was very short and he was extremely large, so much so that when it came to putting the heavy collar round his neck, especially when he was tossing his head up and down, I found this very difficult. Once when turning the collar too slowly over the thinnest part of his neck, I pulled him on top of me. I cried out for help, but fortunately the horse decided to get up himself and I lived to tell the tale.

There was another day when the horse was in the field with the cows and the bull. I managed to bridle the horse but turned round to see the bull, head down, charging straight for me. Now, I’ve never been the athletic type, but that day I ran for my life, grabbed hold of the barbed wire fence (OUCH!), and leapt clean over it. It was a miracle I cleared it; I’m sure the Lord was with me.

Of course, there were other jobs to be done in the fields - hoeing, collecting mangles swedes and cow-kale for cow fodder. Later carting hay and building hayricks. Then the great Harvest - my favourite job of all - sitting on the binder cutting corn. I remember the fields, ‘stooking’ for the Scottish farmer, - ‘shocking’ in Hertfordshire, - ‘traving’ in Essex; and I guess there are other terms for this in other areas of the country - it’s piling sheaves into 6’s and 8’s like little tents around the fields, stalks downward, to dry for two or three days according to the weather, then carting them up to the farm and unloading them into barns, ready for the threshing machine. Sometimes the carting went on until 11pm. We had double summer time of course during the war days.

Harvest was such a great time of fellowship in those days, all teams working together. Tea, provided by the farmer’s wife was brought to the fields if you happened to be working for a generous farmer. I feel today’s harvesting must be a lonely job in comparison to those days - just one person spending hours working a combine harvester all alone. Yes, they are no doubt, much faster and more efficient and able to cope with the varying weather, but I can’t help but think of all the good times of fun and fellowship we had when I was in the Land Army.

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