The Second World War ended over 60 years ago, only now have members of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corp been awarded a badge to commemorate their contribution to the war effort.
Annabella, left, with a citation signed by Gordon Brown while Phyllis displays her commemorative badge
And what a contribution it was, food and labour shortages meant that girls had to turn their hand to jobs that they had never imagined. The advertising slogan said, “For a happy healthy job join the Women’s Land Army”. In reality the work was hard and dirty and the hours were long.
As the official history Women at war says; “The girls of the land army looked after animals, ploughed the fields, dug up potatoes, harvested the crops, killed the rats, dug and hoed for 48 hours a week in the winter and 50 hours a week in the summer. As there was not enough machinery to go round they often had to work with old fashioned equipment, such as horse drawn hand ploughs, and to harvest crops by hand”. All for 26 shillings a week (About £1 and 30 pence in today’s money for our younger readers!)
One statistic tells the story; these women brought two million previously uncultivated acres under the plough during the war. At its peak there were 83,300 land army girls, 28,000 survivors will have received their very belated honour this summer.
We have two ex-land army girls in Glinton, and there must be others in the Benefice who we should know about. Phyllis Wright and Annabella Woodbridge both joined up in 1940 and worked for the WLA for the duration. Annabella had been in domestic service, working for a doctor, and suddenly had to exchange that life for the life of a travelling farmworker, based in Scotland, somewhere above Aviemore. She drove tractors amongst many other things and still speaks with affection of the Ferguson, and Ford-Ferguson (Tractor boys of the Benefice, enlighten the readership, everyone has heard of the Ferguson, and the Fordson - when did these two great tractor companies come together, and for how long?).
Annabella tells us that children in rural Scotland never wore shoes in the summer, they earned the money for school shoes by planting potatoes in March, and harvesting them in September, and Phyllis was sorting mushrooms in Chiselehurst Caves for Covent Garden at the age of 131⁄2!
Phyllis later worked in London, and joined the Women’s Land Army with a friend as ‘a great adventure’. She wasn’t quite 17, the legal age for joining, but never mind, young people just got on with life in those days. Phyllis trained at the Moulton Institute of Agriculture, then worked around Higham Ferrers for the duration.
Annabella and Phyllis remind us of the vivid, hard and dangerous times the wartime generation lived through, and that despite the hardship, life wasn’t always bleak.
They clearly haven’t forgotten their training, a recent edition of ‘Foyles War’, set in the 1940’s, showed land army girls planting potatoes in entirely the wrong way according to our two experts!
We owe a debt of gratitude to this, until recently, ‘forgotten army’ and in particular to our own heroines.
If there are any other ex members of the WLA in the Benefice, the Tribune would love to hear from them.
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