by Dee Gordon
Lifelong Friendship
Vera Osborne was a Barnardo’s girl, with her roots in Yorkshire, and a background in domestic service as a teenager. During the war years she was back again at Barnardo’s (working this time, in various locations including Thaxted and Barkingside), but in 1945 she joined the WLA and ended up living in a WLA hostel in Kenneth Road, Thundersley.
When working at Wakering, she met Maude Hansford, known as ‘Pips’, from a middle-class philanthropic family in Thorpe Bay, the coastal area chosen to benefit one of her brothers who had asthma. Although Pips lived at home, not the hostel, they worked together, mainly on Montgomery’s Farm at Wakering and mainly on potato picking, though Pips had also worked in Boxford (or Boxted?), in north Essex and in Woodford and Barling, and Hertfordshire.
The two girls (both born in 1918) were joined at Montgomery’s by Lilian (‘Lilian X’ as she prefers to be called here), five years younger, from a large family originally from Bethnal Green who had moved to Benfleet to escape the Blitz but ended up under the flight path of German bombers. Lilian also lived at home while in the WLA, not far from Vera’s hostel, and would join the girls at break time, when Vera would knit and Pips would do the crossword or fuss with her curls, and all three listened to the radio.
So, three diverse backgrounds came together picking potatoes (at which they were so good that Mr Montgomery gradually increased their daily workload) and beetroots, digging ditches, laying barbed wire, and bringing in the harvest stooks. But the friendship they formed in the WLA lasted them a lifetime, and all settled locally around the Southend-on-Sea area. In 1953, Maude received something to be proud of, a gold armband for eight years’ service – quite a rarity.
The Final Goodbye
The last hostel to close in Essex was at Nazeing, in October 1950, with local girls attending a farewell party. Nationally, a farewell parade was held at Buckingham Palace on 21 October that year, with the following representatives from Essex (these may have been WLA girls from Essex, but this does not necessarily mean that they worked in Essex):
Doris Biscoe
Beryl Blair
Edna Clewer
Vera Cook
Marjorie Dawson
Florence Finch
Candida Fox
Lottie Hensleet
Georgina Jupp
Doris May
Constance Musson
Elsie Peacock
Kathleen Warner
The end of the war did not mean the end of the WLA, which was not finally wound up until 1950, although numbers had obviously been dwindling since the end of hostilities. Even as late as 1946, Chelmsford High Street had attractive window displays and posters, with pamphlets laying out the benefits of the WLA, which was still recruiting. In April that year, a tractor drawing a truck containing a hay rick and three Land Army Girls paraded through the streets, looking to attract girls of 18 years plus who were not engaged in essential industries.
In January 1947, the Essex Newsman reported that ‘many more girls were needed’ but there was only a ‘trickle of enquiries’ according to the Essex secretary of the WLA, Mrs Wakeland-Smith. Those girls who joined post-war found themselves doing rather different chores, like removing the barbed wire entanglement at Rochford Golf Course and transporting it to Creeksea, where it was dumped in a sandpit.
In October 1950, 500 Land Girls, with every county represented, marched past Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. In her address, she said that she had:
… always admired their courage in responding so readily to a call which they knew must bring them … hardship and sometimes loneliness. Now the time has come to say goodbye because the job has been done, but the sadness which many feel should be outweighed by pride in the achievement.
Soon after, the queen sent out congratulatory letters to all those with long service, announcing that:
Your unsparing efforts at a time when the victory of our cause depended on the utmost use of the resources of our land have earned for you the country’s gratitude.
In Their Own Words
‘Best days of my life’ and ‘wouldn’t have missed it for the world’ were regular summations by so many members of the WLA, in spite of the hard work and sometimes onerous conditions. Fresh air, and the feeling that they were ‘harvesting for victory’ were also by-products of the WLA lifestyle and something that many girls preferred to their old lives in factories, offices and shops, especially in the East End. There were also the following comments:
One of the happiest times.
[Joyce Clancy, see bibliography]
I felt I was doing something.
[Barbara Rix]
The work kept me fit … I still swim daily in the local baths.
[Barbara Lodge, Essex Chronicle, 24 November 2011]
The memories will stay with me forever.
[Winifred Daines]
A wonderful life … loved every moment … lovely memories.
[Babs Newman]
I was loathe to leave … I just loved the life.
[Diana Thake, see bibliography]
A very happy time … fond memories.
[Frances Ilines, see bibliography]
Smashing. Really lovely. Enjoyed it. Friendly.
[Vera Pratt]
Good fun but a tough life.
[Rita Hoy]
WLA armband belonging to Irene Verlander. (Courtesy of Linda Medcalf Collection; image by author)
A Slow Return to Normality
By 1947, there was growing pressure for the German prisoners of war to be sent home, but as the Germans were taken from the farms, the WLA had to find replacements, and it was not an easy task now that the war was regarded as ‘over’, although rationing stayed in force for a few years more.
One of the German prisoners of war from the camp north of Wakering Common in south Essex did not start working with the horses at Miller’s Farm in Great Wakering until 1946, joining a couple of Land Girls. He stayed until early 1948. Wolfgang Kerwitz sent a long, detailed letter to the farmer about his journey home through a decimated Germany, and sent regards to, among others, Audrey, a local Land Girl. He subsequently kept in touch with the family, returning for a risky visit in 1987 as he was then living back in East Germany. Similarly, other prisoners of war, like Sergeant Heinrich who worked at The Orchards in Writtle, remained in touch with the farmer and the farmer’s family. They visited him in Germany, and remained in contact until his death.
Belated Recognition
The country’s hard-working Land Girls and Lumber Jills (in the Timber Corps) had no post-war gratuity or resettlement grant to look forward to, unlike other services. This was the downside to being a civilian organisation, without the rules and discipline other services had to tolerate.
Lady Denman, who had re-established the WLA in her role as head of the women’s branch of the Ministry of Agriculture, had waged a constant battle to gain proper recognition for the Land Girls. She set up a benevolent fund in 1942, with funds raised by members of the WLA, to help them with the pre-NHS costs of illness or, at a later stage, to help them settle back into civilian life and civilian jobs. But the government ultimately refused to agree to the grants, gratuities and benefits accorded to women in the civil defence and armed services, so Lady Denman resigned in protest on 15 February 1945. She hoped that her public resignation would draw attention to the unfair treatment of members of the WLA, and she published a farewell message in The Land Girl bemoaning their lack of awards and privileges.
This stance became front page news, but resulted at that stage in only minor concessions, e.g. they could keep their coats and shoes upon leaving! (She also retired from her long-standing role in the Women’s Institute in 1946, but this was purely age-related and not a form of protest.) Lady Denman was invested with the Grand Cross of the British Empire in 1951, and the king is said to have commented on that occasion, ‘we always thought that the Land Girls were not well treated’. There were ev
en members of the WLA in the Guard of Honour for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the Essex Agricultural Show at Orsett Hall in 1948, which was also the royal couple’s silver wedding anniversary. The king planted an oak tree in the grounds to mark the visit.
It was a proud, long-awaited day for the ex-members of the WLA to be ‘invited’ to the Cenotaph in 2000, and able to attend the Remembrance Day Parade in London, along with the other services, where they belong.
A monument to the ‘Women of World War II’ was erected in July 2005, near the same Cenotaph in Whitehall, and unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II with such luminaries as Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Boothroyd and Vera Lynn in attendance, as well as female Second World War veterans. Even the flypast pilots and crew were all female. The sculpture features seventeen sets of work clothing and uniforms, symbolising the hundreds of jobs done by women during the war, and including the Women’s Land Army. Babs Newman was one of those in attendance, and recalls it having been a ‘special occasion’. The £1 million monument – designed in Braintree, Essex by sculptor John Mills – was funded partly by Baroness Boothroyd’s win on Who Wants to be Millionaire and partly by the ‘Memorial to the Women of World War Two Fund’, run by volunteers.
Recognition finally came in 2008, with members of the WLA and the Women’s Timber Corps receiving certificates from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, awarded to those who claimed their WLA Veteran’s Badge. These were formally presented at ceremonies all over the country, though not all the surviving WLA members were able to attend. At the presentation in Colchester, the mayor ‘had to kiss a hundred wrinkly ladies’ according to Babs Newman, but no doubt he was focusing on the certificates and badges being presented. Those that did attend one of the ceremonies rather enjoyed the opportunity of a belated reunion, and certainly appreciated the late recognition.
More recently, an 8ft-high bronze sculpture of a Land Girl and Lumber Jill was unveiled in October 2014 by Sophie, Countess of Wessex, at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Surviving women in their eighties and nineties have had a long wait. No longer the forgotten army, we owe them our thanks.
THE LAND GIRL’S SONG
I’m milking – at last I can actually milk
It took me some time, but I stuck it
So now I milk Buttercup, Daisy and Jane
And I really get froth on the bucket!
I think by next week I shall even milk four.
My word, we are
Winning the War!
I’m feeding the calves and the pigs and the hens
(Yes, I carefully boil all the swill)
And the cows and the horses, the sheep and the ducks
Oh, the coupons are tiresome, but still
The hens go on laying, the pigs are eight score.
My word, we are
Winning the War!
I’m hoeing, my word I should say I can hoe
I’ve been doing it for weeks and for weeks.
My back’s used to stooping, but how I do wish
That my blouse wouldn’t gap from my breeks!
But the crops are all growing as never before
So what matter
We’re Winning the War!
I’m ploughing, my word, I should say I can plough
The tractor is always my choice.
I have dragged, drilled and harrowed, disc-harrowed and all
And I sing at the top of my voice
As I swing round the headland and turn up once more
My word, we are
Winning the War!
www.womenslandarmy.co.uk
And the official version – words and music by Land Girls …
BACK TO THE LAND
Back to the land, we must all lend a hand,
To the farms and the fields we must go.
There’s a job to be done,
Though we can’t fire a gun
We can still do our bit with the hoe.
When your muscles are strong
You will soon get along,
And you’ll think that a country life’s grand.
We’re all needed now,
We must all speed the plough,
So come with us – Back to the Land.
Back to the Land, with its clay and its sand,
Its granite and gravel and grit,
You grow barley and wheat
And potatoes to eat
To make sure the nation keeps fit.
Remember the rest
Are all doing their best,
To achieve the results they have planned.
We will tell you once more
You can help win the war
If you come with us – Back to the Land.
The music for this is featured in Shewell-Cooper’s WLA manual, and it is described as ‘easy to learn, cheerful to sing and helps to create the right spirit’.
Select Bibliography
Secondary Sources
Adie, Kate, Fighting on the Home Front (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2013).
All for a Crust, a Collection of Accounts of Women’s Work 1928–1987 (London: Willowbrook Urban Studies Centre, 1992).
Anderson, Janice, Women of the War Years (London: Futura, 2009).
Antrobus, Stuart, The Women’s Land Army in Bedfordshire 1939–1950 (Yorkshire: Book Castle Publishing, 2008).
Beale, Clive and Geoffrey Owen, Writtle College – The First Hundred Years (Chelmsford: Writtle College, 1993).
Benham, Hervey (ed.), Essex at War (self-published, 1945).
Bryan, Ford Richardson, Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford (Wayne State University Press, 1997).
Clark, Revd Andrew, Echoes of the Great War, ed. James Munson (Oxford University Press, 1985).
Cooper, Jacqueline, Clavering at War (Clavering: Jacqueline Cooper, 2012).
Drury, Ken (ed.), The War Years 1939–1945 (Great Dunmow Historical & Literary Society, 2005).
Federation of Essex Women’s Institutes, The Essex Village Book (Newbury: Countryside Books, 2001).
Foley, Michael, Essex: Ready for Anything (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006).
Friends of Epping Forest Newsletter, July 1999 (Hilda Anslow).
Ginn, Peter, Ruth Goodman and Alex Langlands, Wartime Farm (London: Octopus Books, 2012).
Gordon, Dee, Southend at War (Stroud: The History Press, 2010).
Harris, Carol, Women at War 1939–1945 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000).
Historic Writtle – Village Life through Misfortune and War (Heritage Writtle & Writtle Archives, 2013).
Johnson, Derek E., East Anglia at War (Norwich: Parke Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1992).
Keith, Sylvia, Nine Centuries at Copped Hall (S. & J.A. Keith, 2007).
Kennell, Roger, From Little Holland to Holland-on-Sea (no publisher, 2000).
Key, Lorna, Little Totham, the Story of a Small Village (no publisher, 2005).
Knighton, Joyce, Land Army Days (Bolton: Aurora Publishing, no date).
Kramer, Ann, Land Girls and their Impact (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Ltd, 2008).
Krolik Hollenberg, Donna, A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov (University of California Press, 2013).
Lake, Hazel and Brenda Miller (eds), A History of Mark Hall Manor, by Friends of Harlow Museum (Harlow Museum, 2010).
Loughton & District Historical Society Newsletter 166, September/October 2005 (Diana Thake).
Mansell, Pam and Rebecca T. Foster, The Girls of Southend High School 1913–2013 (Leicestershire: Matador, 2013).
Mant, Joan, All Muck, Now Medals (Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2009).
Munson, James (ed.), Echoes of the Great War (Oxford University Press, 1985).
Pearson, Catherine (ed.), E.J. Rudsdale’s Journals of Wartime Colchester (Stroud: The History Press, 2013).
Porter, Kenneth and Stephen Wynn, Laindon in the Great War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Ltd, 2014).
Poulter, Albert, Albert’s Witham (self-published, 1997).
Poulter,
Albert, Reminiscences of a Land Girl in Witham (self-published, 1987).
Powell, Bob and Nigel Westacott, The Women’s Land Army (Stroud: The History Press, 1997).
‘Programme for the Maldon Military and Veterans Show’, 2007 (Frances Ilines, née Whatley).
Rhodes, Linda, The Dagenham Girl Pipers (Dagenham: Heathway Press, 2011).
Sackville-West, Vita, The Women’s Land Army (London: Michael Joseph, 1944).
Shewell-Cooper, W.E., Land Girl: A Manual for Volunteers in the Women’s Land Army 1941 (English Universities Press, 1941).
Smith, Ken, Canewdon: A Pattern of Life through the Ages (Romford: Ian Henry Publications, 1987).
St Dominic’s Care Home Newsletter, March 2014 ( Joyce Clancy).
Steele, Philip, Land Girl (London: Hodder Headline, 2003).
Sutherland, J. & D., Prisoner of War Camps in Britain during the Second World War (Sussex: Golden Guides Press, 2012).
Thomas, Gill, Life on All Fronts (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Thorogood, Julia, Margery Allingham (London: William Heinemann, 1991).
Twinch, Carol, Women on the Land (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1990).
Wormell, Peter, Essex Farming 1900–2000 (Colchester: Abberton Books, 1999).
NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES
Agricultural History Review, vol. 24 (1976).
Chelmsford Chronicle.
Dagenham Post.
East Anglian Daily Times.
East Coast Illustrated & Clacton News, May issues, 1918.
Echo (Southend).
Essex Chronicle.