91Čȱ¬

One of the funniest things was, Sister rang me about 10.30 and said “can you come now?”, and I said “what do you want me to do?” She said we’ve just had 40 Caribbean men flown over for the army and they’ve all got bronchitis, so would you please come and we want you to use some camphorated oil and rub their chests. Well, when I went into the ward, to see 40 black heads on white pillows in the gloom was peculiar. There were 3 of us doing it, quite a lot of the fellas had hairy chests and they’d had them shaved, oh it was prickly!

When I went to the Ministry it was a full time job, and I was a firewatcher as well during the night. Every time the siren went you got up, put your tin helmet on and prayed there wouldn’t be anything in your area.

One night we were all in my mother’s house in Morton Lane and there was a knock at the door. “Can we come and have a look in your garden?” somebody said. “What are you looking for”, we said. He said “An unexploded bomb!” They couldn’t find one though, it was further down the lane.

A lot of the old farmers scoffed at the idea [of the Land Army] because on paper the majority of the volunteers were hairdressers and clerks who hadn’t a clue. But as women are they soon learn. They rigged them out in dun coloured dungarees and nice green jumpers but it wasn’t until they were threshing and rats tried to get up the trouser legs that they decided dungarees really weren’t suitable. This is why they used to put thick socks on — we used to have such complaints!

The landladies always seemed to mother them. The eldest girls would be about 30 and most were 18 and 19 year olds, who had never been in the country before. We got a lot from Hull, and most got an awful shock when they realised how hard they had to work, and if they were milking it would be 6 o’clock in the morning till about 3 in the afternoon. If they were on normal things it would be 7 o’clock until 5. but then of course if they were milking it would be in the evening as well, and some of the animals had to be milked 3 times a day, so it was a really full time job.

They [the land army girls] generally loved the feeling of freedom, not so keen when it was windy and it was threshing time because you breathe in chaff and dust, but they took it all in their stride. What they really hated was grubbing up potatoes, picking carrots, brussel sprouts that were frozen — their poor hands used to get absolutely blue! But they still came up saying “it’s fine —not particularly good today but it’ll be better tomorrow”.

The land girls drove the tractors, which they enjoyed. There weren’t that many cars about so you didn’t come onto the farm having any mechanical mind at all. They did extremely well. But I think that’s part and parcel of human nature — when you are called upon to do very different things for a very good cause, then you do find both the guts and the skills.

When we lived in Morton Lane we had a big garden looking over Hull, and it had a terrace — you went out of the sitting room onto a little path and then a big swirl of grass, and then down some steps onto the lawn. You could go there and stand, and you could see, when the sirens had gone and the Germans were over the river you could see the searchlights, then they’d pick one up and you could see the tiny little bomb coming down and follow it until it exploded. It was awe-inspiring.

We watched the bombs over Hull for night after night in May to August in 1941. It was hell on earth, and you were never sure when you went to bed whether you would wake up in the morning. But then you got blasé and thought well if one’s got my name on it then that’s it. Sometimes you were scared, but things had to go on. It was really one of the most wonderful things — everyone was friendly with everyone else, we were all in it together, and it was really wonderful.

When I went full time at the ministry I could only do nights [in the Nursing Reserve]. That sometimes became a bit difficult, because if you finish work at 5 o’clock here and then you’re called out for fire duty, and then 11 o’clock you had to go to the hospital, you couldn’t take too much of that, so you gradually eased off. Sometimes the cinemas had a first aider and you would go and relieve them on a Saturday. So you were fully occupied one way and another. But it was just as well, because the more you did the less time you had to worry.

Henry went into the Air Force on the 11th October 1942 … he came home in March ’46. They were docking in Liverpool, but they got into the Mersey and put up the yellow flag which was to say they were infectious. — they’d got yellow fever on board. They had to stand out in the river for 6 weeks, it was so near and yet so far! I didn’t see him for all those years, and we had to get to know each other again because we were both so different. Fortunately it was alright but I can imagine quite a lot of other people might have had trouble.

We had billets in all the villages, Tickton and Leven and Sigglesthorne and so on, wherever there were farms and there were people who required help on the farms. They were not necessarily billeted where they worked, they were billeted in any village that would be prepared to take them and they used to have bikes, and they used to go to any nearby farm that needed them. The furthest they would have to go would be about 4 miles. If anything was wrong, or they didn’t like the billet, that’s where I came in.

It was very interesting to see how the girls reacted because being novices they used to come out with all sorts of blisters, and the pitchforks were not always in the land! On the whole they did a very wonderful job. Quite a lot of the girls never really wanted to go back to what they were doing before.

There were three big hostels, one at Market Weighton, one at Bubwith and one at Muston near Filey, they were the ones I was mainly concerned with. In Morton Lane we had a farm hostel but that held mainly the poor refugees from a lot of nations, like Slovakians, Latvians and so on, and they were lovely. They were working on the land, so if a farmer didn’t want a land girl they could have one of these.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.