Essex Land Girls

by Dee Gordon

  Barbara Lodge

  Barbara was originally a munitions worker at the Marconi factory in New Street, Chelmsford, producing vital military communications, but developed a skin complaint which proved a problem. As a result, she was reassigned to the WLA, aged just 16. A lot of her time was spent on a fruit farm at nearby Galleywood, and she met her future husband near there, in a local pub – but couldn’t tell her parents this because of her age. She was quoted in the Essex Chronicle of 24 November 2011 as being ‘so cold and tired’ at the end of the working day that she could ‘barely put pen to paper’ to write to her beloved Ron. However, some compensation was provided by ‘plenty of soldiers’ billeted nearby at Hyland’s Park, serving as dancing partners.

  Anne MacLeod

  In The Land Girl of August 1940, Anne wrote from Essex regarding the lambing season. ‘I got two pet lambs and instead of rearing them on a bottle I reared them on a heifer’, and she sent in a photo to prove it.

  The Land Girl, August 1944. (Courtesy of Stuart Antrobus and www.womenslandarmy.co.uk)

  Nancy Caton

  Featured in Clavering at War, Nancy’s father was a farmer at Manuden in Essex, so she had some idea of what she was letting herself in for. In spite of the long hours, she enjoyed her stint in the Land Army at Uttlesford, feeding the chickens and pigs and helping to bring up the lambs who ‘followed her around’. There was also the potato planting, hoeing and ‘manure-spreading’ (the downside), and a rather daunting big boar ‘with large tusks’ that ‘none of the men would go near’ but who ‘loved to have its ears scratched’. The pigs had even more potatoes in their diet than the Land Girls.

  Joyce ‘X’

  Joyce (see Braintree District Museum archives) wrote of:

  … a cider making plant at Witham. This was a large roof supported on four corners, no sides, open to the elements and it was always freezing cold. Boxes of apples were brought straight from orchards and tipped manually into the washing tank. The apples were then scooped out of the water to the top of the chute where two girls stood ready to push the apples into a grinder/masher. Another two girls waiting at the bottom had the job of spreading the mashed apples on to massive pieces of sacking and then fold the corners over, envelope fashion. A stack of about ten sacking envelopes was put under a press, this squeezed out all the juice. The dried apple mash was then thrown out on to a heap and the sacking reused. Thinking back, it wasn’t too hygienic, any twigs, leaves and spiders etc. that I had missed all went into the grinder.

  There was also a speaker at Chigwell West Hatch High School in 1991 (who cannot now be traced) who spoke of the foreman measuring the distance between potatoes she planted when in the Land Army on a farm in Southminster – they had to be 14in apart. She spoke of sorting and tying rhubarb into ‘bunches’ of ‘five wide sticks, six medium sticks and two handfuls of small sticks’ and then moving on to train as a tractor driver, working between the Crouch and Blackwater rivers.

  Location, Location, Location

  While some Land Girls spent literally years in just one place, others enjoyed a bit of variety, not only in the work they did but also the locations they worked in. They could be clearing fields at Bower Hall Farm in Mersea, cutting back derelict areas of overgrown scrubland in Rochford or Thaxted, or picking fruit at the Wilkins jam factory in Tiptree. (Interestingly, there was a bumper crop of cherries and plums in 1942 for Wilkins, partly testament to the work of the WLA, with a similar increase in the annual potato crop after the Land Army had ploughed up Blackshots playing field in Thurrock, also in 1942.)

  They could be using old steam engines to plough up uncultivated meadows and common land, such as an area of 1,200 acres at Hornchurch, meaning that wheat could be grown there for the first time in forty years, producing much-needed bread for London and beyond. According to the Chelmsford Chronicle of 29 January 1943, a part of this latter task was to drag down ‘trees thicker than a man’ by chains attached to steam-driven ploughs, with overgrown hedges cleared in the same way.

  Bower Hall Farm, Mersea, 1943, with Land Girls and the driver Frank Richer, clearing the lower fields with a caterpillar. (Courtesy of the David Green Collection at Mersea Museum)

  Valentines Park in Ilford and Parsloes Park in Dagenham were among those partly dug up by the Land Army at a time when everyone was digging for victory, even if they only had an allotment or small garden. One of the Land Girls featured on the ‘Wartime Memories’ website refers to the girls in Valentines Park giving the soldiers on the ack-ack guns fresh vegetables. Similar use was made of many other parks in Essex, including Ray Park in Snakes Lane, Woodford, then owned by Bryant & May (the matchmakers), and providing work for five Land Girls who grew onions, carrots, cabbages and a variety of fruit – with part of the park used for rabbit production.

  Parts of Epping Forest were also secured for growing vegetables. Even village greens, such as that at Great Bentley, were not safe – this was ploughed up on the orders of the Essex War Agricultural Executive Committee so that the area could produce potatoes, flax and peas, although the cricket club and football club escaped unscathed. On farms, in nurseries, parks, gardens and forests – Land Girls were everywhere.

  There are references in the Essex Record Office to Land Girls working at a widespread array of farms, including Rawreth (Beeches Farm), Reeds Hill Farm (replacing ten men), and Burnt Mill Road, Benfleet, and in Kent’s Farm Nurseries, Holland-on-Sea, whose main crops were cucumbers and tomatoes grown in extensive glasshouses.

  There were also Land Girls at Downe Hall Farm, near Roydon, run by Mrs Beryl Abbey who was originally famous as a breeder of goats but had diversified into cattle, and was apparently then living in genteel decay. Beryl Abbey had lived in great affluence breeding dogs at the time of the First World War, and noticed that they thrived on goats’ milk, so she bought one – and became the ‘Godmother of British Alpine Goats’, until the crash of 1929. During the Second World War, she contributed a monthly spot on the BBC called Goat Keeping in Wartime (see the British Goat Society Monthly Journal of January 2011).

  Joan Culham at Miller’s Farm, Wakering. (Courtesy of Millers Farm and John Street)

  John Threadgold, of Miller’s Farm in Great Wakering, remembered his parents employing Land Girls at their farms. Specifically, he spoke of Audrey Capp at Oxenham Farm, who was about 17 and weighed only 8 stone ‘but could lift a 1½ cwt sack of oats on her shoulders and put it in the granary’. Audrey also did the milk round on Foulness using a horse and cart. She arrived in 1941, and was followed a year later by Joan Culham, a tall girl (over 6ft) from Southend-on-Sea who stayed at Miller’s Farm.

  Some of the Hazards

  Probably the unluckiest Land Girl of them all was 18-year-old Jean Lakin. Based at Mark Hall in Harlow, she was sitting on the shaft of a horse and cart when it went through a gate, at Kitchen Hall Farm, knocking her off, with fatal consequences. The Land Army placed a memorial in the vestry of Latton church at Harlow, recording her death on 27 September 1944.

  Harlow Land Girls had been particularly unlucky, with another funeral – that of Doreen Francis, aged just 17 – having taken place in February 1943. Twenty members of the WLA formed ‘a guard of honour’ at Doreen’s funeral with Mrs Tom Howard ‘representing Mrs Solly-Flood, the Organising Secretary of the WLA’ according to the Harlow Gazette. A wreath in the shape of the WLA badge was among those in evidence.

  Gas attacks were something that Land Girls prepared for, but which thankfully didn’t actually happen. They learnt how to deal with gassed animals, how to protect chicken coops and cowsheds with dampened sacks, and how to treat blistered cattle. Animals would have had to be led to decontamination areas, where their sores could be treated, and the girls picked up such tips as how to protect horses’ eyes with bandages soaked in the horse’s own urine. Such a hazard threatened not only the animals but the Land Girls themselves, although the danger diminished as the months passed.

  More commonly, bulls feature in a number of the more
hazardous stories told by members of the WLA. Florence Rawlings spoke of being knocked over by one who was scared by a snapping dog, and there was a report in the Chelmsford Chronicle (24 September 1943) of a bull attacking ‘Land Girl Joan Catch at Aylen’s Farm, Hornchurch’ resulting in her spending ‘time in Oldchurch hospital’. The same newspaper, in January 1943, refers to an attack on Ruth Cunningham and Mary White, and this is given in more detail in the Harlow Gazette:

  Employed by Mr J.W. Soper, of New Hall Farm, Harlow, Miss Ruth Cunningham, aged 21, whose home address is 11a Elington Road, Chingford, and Miss Mary White, aged 18, of 68 Dall View Avenue, Chingford, were repairing a fence on Harlow Common on Saturday when a bull approached Miss Cunningham. Warned by Miss White, Miss Cunningham chased the bull away. It afterwards returned and attacked her, knocking her down and rolling her over. On seeing her companion’s danger, Miss White dragged her comrade through the fence to safety. On hearing screams, the foreman of the farm rushed to the scene and found Miss Cunningham badly bruised and cut in several places. After being carried to the farm, Miss Cunningham was taken to her billet at Cheshunt Cottage, High Street, Harlow … an ambulance removed Miss Cunningham to her home. [She] has been in the WLA for over two years and previously worked in the office of Connaught Hospital, London. For six months, Miss White has been a member of the WLA, being employed at Barclays Bank, London, previously.

  An interesting variant on this theme was the attack by a bull on ‘Mr A. Hammond’ at his farm – the Outwood Dairy Farm at Billericay – in February 1945, again reported in the Chelmsford Chronicle. This time it was ‘Mrs C. Moughton, a WLA girl’ who came to his rescue, ‘holding the bull off with a pitchfork’ until it had ‘been secured’ by some of the farmhands. Mr Hammond ‘sustained a fractured rib and collar-bone’.

  Falls, from ladders, hayricks, and horses were everyday occurrences, regarded as part of the job. Irene Verlander fell off a ladder in one of the orchards she worked for, but was dismissive of the resultant bruises. One girl fell off ‘the top of a stack, threw her pitchfork down and landed on it – nasty’, remembers Winifred Daines. A similar fall from a haystack when using a pitchfork left Elsie Haysman in some pain, but at least she didn’t land on the pitchfork.

  A fall from a shire horse was another accident that befell Florence Rawlings. She had to ride it to Hanningfield from Ramsden Bellhouse to get it shod at the farrier, but it was uncomfortable and she eventually fell off on one trip, needing the help of a passing farmer to get back on.

  Irene Verlander (née Hart) in the sunshine. (Courtesy of Linda Medcalf)

  The Ilford Guardian of 28 August 1943 refers to WLA girl ‘Miss Cecilia Cripps, 17, of Henley Road, Ilford’ who had a ‘narrow escape from serious injury when she was trapped by an over-turned horse and cart … she was employed by Mr R. Radbourne, a farmer at Latton, Harlow … She sustained a bruised back and was taken to Haymeads Hospital, Bishops Stortford.’

  The tools and machinery that were part and parcel of the workplace meant different kinds of risks being undertaken, without any thought of injury. As Winifred Daines said, ‘There were no first aid boxes in spite of very sharp tools.’ She remembers one girl ‘losing the top of her finger’. One Land Girl, reminiscing in Reveille (24 October 1975), spoke of ‘baling so much hay that your hands were covered with blisters. Then you had to burst the blisters and milk fourteen cows.’ Blisters were also a problem for Irene Verlander and Gladys Pudney; the latter recommended a treatment of ‘lard and sugar’, but she didn’t say if it worked! Winnie Bell ended up with her ‘thumb in plaster for six weeks’ after getting a bit too close to the working parts of a threshing machine, and Vera Pratt was left with a scar on her right hand after the ‘bloke next to her’ dropped the knife he was using to cut kale – on to Vera’s knuckles.

  The girls also had to be careful to protect their eyes from the chaff and from sharp appendages or anything thrown at them by Mother Nature. When using a ditch as a latrine, for instance, you had to keep a sharp eye out for wasps’ nests! One girl in Winifred Daines’ billet finished her day with ‘a thorn in her eye’ and Winifred ‘had to get two other girls to hold her still so we could remove it’, although it seems that eventually her crying washed it out. Fire was another everyday hazard, although two WLA girls employed by Mr Smith of Franklyn’s Farm in Harlow actually assisted the Harlow Fire Service when they were called to a fire at the farm.

  The manual issued to all volunteers in the WLA gave some help with first aid for bites, chilblains, chapped hands, cracked thumbs, scratches, styes, and dealing with a nail that had penetrated a shoe. These were obviously the most common of the everyday complaints.

  Lillian Woodham remembers working on the land, horse hoeing, close to Romford Aerodrome, when she heard German fighters in the distance, and ‘hurried to hide’ herself and the horse ‘behind a tall hedge’. In her haste she ‘turned the horse and myself too fast, causing him to stamp on my foot. In the soft soil, my foot [must have sank] about six inches. By the time I got my foot out, the Germans had passed over.’ Similarly, a heavy cart horse trod on Dorothea Strange’s toe, a painful experience she was able to recall, but which had no impact on her work rate.

  A smaller problem (literally) were the fleas many girls came into contact with. When Connie Robinson was working near Maldon, she first noticed the itching during her lunch when seated in a barn. Later the same day, all the girls in her ‘gang’ joined her in the incessant scratching. Told it ‘was only fleas’ (although there were nits to contend with too), the girls were advised ‘not to worry’. What it did mean though was that the ‘first one back [to Mangapp’s, a ‘large-ish’ hostel at Burnham-on-Crouch] could run a bath and get rid of them’ even though they didn’t like to admit their existence. Baths, although not always available, were also deemed necessary for those who had been working in greenhouses with tomatoes (that stained the hands yellow) or with coloured and/or smelly dyes. Barbara Rix caught ‘ringworm from the cattle, and had chilblains from milking’, which involved moving from handling the warm milk to the cold outside.

  Dorothea Strange (née Nevison) looking glamorous. (Courtesy of Sandra Parker)

  Unloading ‘hefty bags of lime’ and ending up with burned arms was something Audrey Clarke remembered in a 1989 article by Jenny Brogan in the Gazette & Citizen. She was working at a poultry farm in Braintree at the time, and her uncovered arms left her exposed to real peril – as did ‘lifting the very heavy bags’, and the strain this put on her heart ending her employment in 1946. Dorothy Jennings also had a number of health issues, reported in her diaries. She wrote often of sore throats, headaches and toothache, and was off work for three weeks at one point with German measles when working around Brentwood.

  The sun itself was something a lot of girls were not used to, especially those that had been working in offices before joining the WLA. In the summer, many hours were spent in the heat, and not a lot of the girls favoured wearing a protective hat. The suntan, by the Second World War, was being cultivated as an asset, but sunstroke could be serious, as with one girl Winifred Daines remembers when working at Witham: ‘We had to drag her across the railway line and put her under a tree to provide some shade, but she then had to wait there until the lorry picked her up at 5 p.m.’ Gladys Pudney also remembers one of her fellow Land Girls getting ‘sunburn during harvesting’.

  Dorothy Jennings (née Foster) in formal pose. (Courtesy of Marion Dowling)

  At the other extreme, one of the jobs that Vicky Phillips had was to act as a ‘human scarecrow’ at Harlow, working alone in the snow, when she ‘passed out, and came to in an army hut with tea made with condensed milk’. It seemed that she was suffering from snow blindness, her bird-scaring days at an end.

  Some girls, of course, were not used to early mornings or the primitive rural conditions on offer in remoter areas. The Essex Newsman of 17 July 1943 pointed out that WLA girls were leaving field work on the ‘marsh farms’ because the farm cottages used as billets
‘were often without gas or electricity’ not to mention the lack of ‘shopping and transport facilities’. It suggests that the WLA ‘girls were more interested in picking fruit’ – and this may well have been true, in some cases at least. However, those employed on apple farms, for instance, would have had to spray the trees several times a year with quite poisonous chemicals.

  Then there was the war! Girls working in greenhouses were vulnerable if a doodlebug cut out nearby, the resultant explosion causing shattered windows and flying glass. Land Girls like Lillian Woodham could be called upon to help out with fire-watching – ‘looking out for fire bombs, land mines and doodlebugs’. Two anonymous Land Girls in Essex had a letter published in the August 1940 issue of The Land Girl pointing out that although ‘the air raids are horrid … we just keep smiling. We are doing all sorts of interesting jobs … and we are now thistle dodging! … It is up to us to be cheery.’

  In February 1945, over twenty girls went to the aid of a crashed American fighter plane at Felsted. They had been working at Glandfields Farm and Camsix Farm in the area, and helped local farm workers release the experienced pilot, Lieutenant Hardee, from the cockpit. The aircraft’s engine had failed near Glandfields Farm on the Chelmsford Road, and the aircraft had clipped a tree, cartwheeled and smashed, just yards from where the girls were working. (According to the local parish magazine, he was taken to the US hospital in Braintree but later died of his injuries.)