'When war broke out I was in my early teens. A few of us from school were asked to help with the evacuation of children from London. When my school was shared by an evacuated school we only had half day lessons. I was then asked to help in the Town Hall at the billeting office. As the war progressed in 1941 I wanted to join the Forces to do my "bit" but was not allowed, being under age and I had to have my parents permission. However I discovered that I could join the Land Army without their permission which I did and it was a "fait accompli". I stayed there for four years.
I firstly went to a market garden in Colnbrook Bucks near what is now Heathrow. I worked in the fields with diddycoys (now called travellers) and gypsies and they invited me to their encampment in the field belonging to the farmer in the evenings. I watched them whittling pegs and making baskets, etc. and some of the caravans were real gypsy types so clean and shining.
However after being there for about 3 weeks the Welfare Officer came round and said I should not be working with gypsies, which I had quite enjoyed doing and moved me to a poultry farm in Ditton near Langley, Slough. I was in sole charge of 3,000 odd chickens and knew nothing about them with no-one to really help, so I bought books and read up about poultry. The poultry were housed in a very large orchard near to the farmhouse with a large walled garden in the middle. I had my own toilet facilities and a boiler house and a large shed with chair and table, so I was very well off. I used to wander into the walled garden when no-one was about and pick apricots, peaches and other exotic fruit and of course in the summer I could pick plums, apples and pears as I walked round the orchard. A man called Alfie came in the morning to light the boiler and boil up the potatoes for the mash and help with the feeding and a boy came on Saturdays to help clean out the pens. Apart from this I was alone all day and rarely saw anyone else. I did go into the farmhouse for a drink of milk in the mornings and occasionally watched the farmer's wife in the dairy. The owner of this farm was a "Gentleman Farmer" who just walked round his large farm with his walking stick without doing any work on the farm.
Different breeds of chicken were in different areas of the orchard with long runs and the bantams were not shut up at all. Every so often we had to move the runs to new grass. I loved the work and learned quickly what to do. I learned to pluck and draw chickens for Christmas and eventually to wring their necks which I didn't really like doing. When I was shown how to do it, it looked quite easy, but when having to do it for the first time with no-one else there the chicken never seemed to die. I panicked, but after the third time of pulling and screwing I thought I had broken it's neck and put it down on the floor but it got up and ran drunkenly around for a while. You can imagine my horror, but I was told afterwards that although the bird was dead its nerves made it react in that way.
I had little time off, because dealing with birds or animals one had to work at weekends and I rarely went home to Bedfordshire some 50 or 60 miles away. I had a long weekend 2 or 3 times a year, but somehow I never minded this. We were poorly paid and never got overtime for weekend work.
At threshing time I helped in the evenings because the threshing machine was held in the stack yard in my area where the geese and the duckpond were. It was a filthy job with the dust getting up the nose, in the eyes and mouth making one look ghostly and the eyelashes and what hair was showing under the scarf were all white. At these times I did meet other land girls, but they were rare occasions.
Whenever I had to go through the stack yard the gander would chase me and hiss which made me quite afraid of him, but I was told not to turn my back on him and to stare him out, which did the trick. In the end I was brave enough to chase him at times!
There was an RAF airfield in the nearby village of Langley and we were invited to dances. I became friendly with the New Zealand Commanding Officer and he used to fly low over the farm and orchard on occasions and wave to me. Being near to what is now Heathrow we had many night air raids but very few in the day. We had an air raid shelter in the garden of my digs which we used at first, but people got blasé after a while and just got under the table or in the cupboard under the stairs when there was an air raid instead of going out into the garden in the dark and the cold. Ditton Park was close by and was taken over by the Navy it was all very "hush-hush" I was told secret work was going on there, but the Germans obviously did not know about it because it was in a thickly wooded area, so maybe could not be seen from the air. I was allowed to walk to the farm through the park to get to work.
The first billet I had was with the cowman's family. There was no central heating or electric fires and no bathroom. In the winter the water in the washstand jug was freezing and sometimes I had to break the ice on top to wash with it. I was allowed a bath once a week in a tin bath by the fire.
In the summer I had to wait until dusk to lock up the chickens for the night and one night I was rather late and it was dark. Going through the orchard the guinea fowl nesting in the trees were good watchdogs and kicked up an awful cacophony when anyone passed by. The farmer came out with his shotgun and challenged me. Fortunately he didn't shoot first!
I went to a Land Girl's wedding in Iver, Bucks. The girl worked for the Duchess of Kent. It was a small village church and after the wedding I stood next to the Duchess of Kent while waiting for the bride to come out. With her were Princess Alexandra and her small brother. I was amazed at the Duchess's make-up- you could have scraped it off it was so thick. The children, especially Alexandra were so excited they ran up and down and jumped about. I also used to see the two princesses Elizabeth and Margaret go down my road to Windsor Castle on a Friday afternoon. It was a little used road and they wouldn't attract attention down there. They got used to seeing me and would wave as I passed down the road to feed chickens in another field.
We had some show breed chickens and I would have to take them to Shows around the area and to Crystal Palace in London. I had to polish their nails and feathers, etc. and we won many prizes with our Old English breed. I was always the only female amongst a hall full of men, but they always looked after me very well. At first I was quite shy, but eventually enjoyed the attention I was given.
The Ministry of Agriculture officials used to come round occasionally and they tried to persuade me to go to Agricultural College and they put my name down for Harper Adams Agricultural College in Shropshire which was at that time the most famous one. I had been waiting for a place in Teachers' Training College, but at the end of the war I almost simultaneously got a place from both colleges and was undecided which one to take, but my first love prevailed and I chose the teaching career. JCJ
