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The Women's Land Army

The History Press

Uniform

Baggy Brown Brown Breeches And A Cowboy Hat was the title of one Land Girl's book containing her reminiscences. Despite this description the 'Walking Out' uniform could be very smart, even if some of it had to be 'home tailored', and the hat bent to suit the personality of the wearer!

Laced brown brogue shoes were worn with brown corduroy (or occasionally gabardine) breeches, and fawn knee-length woollen socks. A smart green V-necked long-sleeved ribbed pullover was worn over a fawn short-sleeved Aertex shirt, with the WLA tie added for formal wear. The uniform was topped with the brown felt 'pork-pie'-style hat, with the WLA badge on the band. This uniform was completed by a good quality melton three-quarter length brown overcoat that was both warm and rainproof (at least until it got wet right through!). For parades and rallies the WLA armband was also worn on the left arm. The colour reflected each five years of service, and apart from the WLA and a crown woven into the cloth, the girls sewed on half diamond cloth badges for each six months of service.

The working uniform of brown dungarees with matching jacket had to serve for most of the work. Wellington boots were issued when available, and some girls received leather ankle boots. Extremes of hot, cold and inclement weather led to many unofficial variations of the uniform. The range varied from the adaptation of dungarees into shorts (some were very short!) during the hot summers, to outer layers of old sacks tied round with binder twine during the worst of the winter rain.

Hostels & Billets

Many of the Land Girls were placed in lodgings and billets near their place of work. These could be cottages in an adjacent village, with the families of fellow farm workers, or living in the farmhouse with the farmer and his wife. Many billets were pleasant, but some varied from poor to atrocious.

Few of the cottages boasted baths or readily available hot water for washing, and the bedding provided was none too clean. A few landladies took rations intended for the Land Girls to add to the meals of their own families, giving the girls small portions and the poorer quality food. Occasionally girls living-in with the farmer and his family were treated as though they were household servants as well as farm workers.

A good and efficient Land Army local representative with the welfare of her girls at heart could often sort out these difficulties by a word in the right place, or moving a girl to another billet. However, it was not unknown for the local representative to be on familiar terms with the farmer or cottager in her area, and so to take their part in disputes.

When the girls settled down and found their feet they could often find alternative billets for themselves. Nevertheless, the feelings of these young girls, often moving from home in towns and cities for the first time in their lives, and being pitched into this rural environment, can be imagined.

As the numbers of Land Girls increased and mobile gangs were formed for labour-intensive work, hostels were opened to accommodate girls in available vacant country houses and schools. The numbers accommodated at each hostel could be as low as six, or up to a hundred girls. Once the initial problems were overcome most provided an acceptable standard of food and accommodation, but the comfort of a hostel depended on the attitude of the resident warden and her staff. Many wardens were like mothers to their girls, but some were too strict or too indifferent; one was found to be selling the girls' rations on the black market!

Training

During the early part of the Second World War training of the girls took place at designated training farms, for short periods, or was just training on the job at the place of work.

As things became more organized periods of training, usually of six weeks, took place at existing agricultural colleges. Colleges used in the south of England included Brinsbury College at Pulborough, Plumpton Agricultural College and Sparsholt Farm Institute near Winchester. During the first years Land Girls were given training in hand- and machine-milking, animal husbandry, tractor driving and handwork jobs. Later more specialized courses such as thatching, hedge laying and pest control were available.

As the increasing need for more and more food production became apparent, and more tractors were available to farmers, there was an immediate need for extra Land Girl tractor drivers. Specialist tractor driver training units were set up, such as the one established on Brighton Racecourse, under the umbrella of the East Sussex War Agricultural Executive Committee and Brighton Corporation.

Some girls retain bitter memories of early training farms, where they were regarded as little more than free labour, being taught no more than how to fork muck into a wheelbarrow and wash down the cow stalls. Fortunately this sort of thing was soon rooted out, and most girls found training alongside other novices hard work, but endurable.

Over the ten-year period Land Girls discovered some very valuable talents and developed great skills. Many employers gave glowing reports of their girls; for example, 'my girls are as good as any male farm worker, and often much more conscientious.'

Handwork

Girls have always excelled at the delicate handwork required in nurseries and glasshouses, dealing with plants and seedlings. Many girls were drafted in to work in this way to boost production of much-needed vegetables and salad crops. However, many more girls were recruited into the mobile gangs that worked in all weathers, hoeing and singling plants for weeks on end in the open fields. They will all remember how their backs felt in the first few days, but also how they got used to it in the end.

The girls had to cope with all the work done by the men now in the armed forces, and this included all the hard dirty work like muck-spreading by hand, and cold freezing work in the cabbage fields in winter.

As the German blockade of our merchant ships bit harder, so the girls had to take on the extra work now needed to make up for the food that could no longer be imported. That they coped was in itself an enormous tribute to their work. The varied jobs that were done, and done well, are now difficult for them to believe looking back. So many different jobs were tackled as they arose day by day, but probably hoeing and muckspreading by hand will be most remembered by those who just got on with the job!

Tractor Work

With the able-bodied younger farm workers gone to war, and the introduction of tractors to what had previously been horse-only farms, a trained Land Girl often became the farm's only expert tractor machinery operator.

Girls were given intensive training at the special schools, such as the one on Brighton Racecourse. They left these schools with a fairly sound knowledge of how to drive and maintain their tractor, how to plough and how to operate a number of implements. Some of the girls were given training on the job at the farms where they worked.

It was during the period of vastly increased food production that many small farms saw their first tractor arrive, often on hire or loan from the county War Agricultural Executive Committee (generally known as the 'War Ag').

The idea of girls operating new modern machinery like tractors was quite revolutionary, and newsworthy. The combination of new machinery and girls doing a man's job attracted the reporter and photographer.

Haymaking

The tradition of women on farms being called upon to help with the haymaking was ages old. They had wielded pitchforks and hay rakes for generations to help dry the hay, wind-row it ready for collection and help with loading. Land Girls now came on to the farms and took this help many stages further, taking over the men's work of pitching up and loading hay wagons, pitching into the elevators and driving horses and tractors. As the girls became more experienced, some took on the more responsible jobs of mowing and turning hay with horses and tractors, and on several farms took over the very skilful task of building the towering haystacks.

The idyllic picture of a sun-bronzed pretty girl lifting a wisp of hay on a pitchfork was certainly attractive, but the girls soon found it wasn't quite like that. Long hours under a burning sun wielding a hayfork led to aching arms and legs accompanied by itching and often sunburn. Then there was the nightly ritual, while dog tired, of having to remove the hayseeds from socks and underclothes where they had become embedded.

There was compensation in having a feeling of great satisfaction, looking back at the clean hay fields and the gathered hay safely in the stacks, ensuring winter feed for all the animals.

Harvesting & Threshing

Land Girls wholeheartedly pitched in to the work of harvesting. The skills of 'shocking up' the sheaves of wheat, barley and oats, using a pitchfork to throw the sheaves up on to the wagons, and loading all came quickly, often as a form of self-preservation.

In the hand work of harvesting the girls learned that however hot the weather it was most unwise to bare one's arms and legs. The straw and the often encountered thistles in the sheaves could soon draw blood on bare skin. The itch caused by the barley 'oiks' penetrating the more tender parts could still be felt days later.

Girls were soon operating the self-binders that cut the corn, and often an all-girl team with a Land Army tractor driver was hard at work.

The long tiring hours of harvest would eventually come to an end, however delayed it might be by the weather, and a yard full of well-built corn ricks gave its own satisfaction.

The annual visit of the threshing tackle to each farm was a time when extra help was needed to cope with the dirty, dusty, monotonous tasks of feeding and clearing the machine. This was a job for which Land Girls were always used.

Kent War Agricultural Executive Committee was the first to decide that every travelling threshing machine would have its own permanent gang of Land Girls, usually four, to accompany the two men that maintained and ran the machine. Most of these gangs made up their rota so that each girl took a turn at the dustiest jobs. They all worked in the hope that the billet or hostel would be able to provide enough hot water for a bath at the end of the day; not always realized by any means.

Other Jobs

When male farm workers were leaving to join the Armed Forces in increasing numbers, the Land Girls were always there whatever job came up. With or without proper training, they soon became as skilled as the men, sometimes even better! 'The girls take advice more easily than men and are quick to grasp new ideas' was recorded at the time. They didn't always get the mucky jobs, but often did! Taking charge of poultry was a job at which Land Girls excelled, seeming to have the flair to persuade chickens to lay.

In the winter of 1942 as many as 200 of the 850 official pest controllers were Land Girls. This was a specialized job that usually meant rat catching. It was said that every rat on the farm cost 6s a year. The amount of food and animal feed eaten or spoiled by rats was estimated to amount to £25, 000, 000 a year. One girl later took charge of pest control over a large area of Hertfordshire.

A number of girls were attached to hospitals and military camps, to use vacant ground for production of vegetables and salad crops needed directly at these establishments. Land Girls were also employed at Kew Gardens, London, which fulfilled a wartime role of vegetable growing.

It would not be possible to list all the other jobs, but included is a selection: ditching, hedging, working in large dairies bottling and distributing milk (one girl delivered milk with a motor cycle and sidecar carrying a 17 gallon churn). One girl even became a water diviner.

A West Kent farmer reported: 'I have eleven Land Girls and would never have men again if I can help it. The women are cleaner, more conscientious and work far harder.' Overheard at a Wiltshire WLA rally was the comment: 'Tough? That girl is so tough she could use barbed wire as a chin strap!' Finally, as if their work as Land Girls wasn't sufficient, two East Kent girls joined the local Home Guard.

Milking & Cattle

Women have always excelled at milking (milkmaids of old) and calf-rearing, and Land Girls, with a little training and sometimes a lot of courage, were no exception. The Land Army years covered the transition of many farms from hand-to machine-milking. The girls' training mostly took account of hand-milking, but later machine-milking was taught. Of course any milker, man or woman, only became expert with practice on the job. It was recorded that one girl progressed from one cow per milking on her first day to thirteen cows by the end of the week.

There are many stories of dark, wet, cold mornings starting milking at 5 a. m., but the warmth of the cowshed and snuggling up to the cow's flanks while sitting on the milking stool did compensate. The possible exception was milking in the outdoor milking bail on high windswept downs in Wiltshire and elsewhere. Also recorded in detail are the 'kickers', cows that kicked the milker, knocked her off her stool, propelled the milking bucket across the shed, or merely put a dung-covered foot into it.

Land Girls were always good at calf-rearing, generally having more patience and kindness than male farm stockmen. Like most farm-workers, the girls could be divided into those who loved cattle and those who hated them.

The photographs produced seem to indicate a lively interest in bulls, not perhaps surprising with the many recorded incidents of the girls rescuing other farm-workers or fellow Land Girls from being hurt by angry bulls. A number of girls received awards for bravery while taking part in these rescues. In those days, pre-artificial insemination, bulls were kept on most farms, so the girls were in daily contact with these animals.

Land Girls were employed in the day-to-day feeding and care of fat and store cattle, but the number engaged in milking was by far the greater. Several score of girls ended their service in charge of milking herds, and few managed very large herds, including the breeding programmes.

CH10 Horses

The older farm-workers, not needed in the armed forces, were often the horsemen, so there were considerably fewer Land Girl horsewomen than tractor drivers. These horsemen worked with a pair or team on ploughing and other cultivation jobs, but all farms had single horses used for odd jobs round the farm. Single horse work often came to the girls, and they took it up with enthusiasm. They became adept with a horse at general carting, including clamped roots for stock feed, hay, straw and manure. In so many ways a horse and cart are more manoeuvrable and versatile than a tractor and trailer, especially for one person feeding animals from a moving cart in the fields.

Many farms kept an odd lighter horse for jobs such as carting the daily churns of milk to the railway station, or collection point, delivering daily milk supplies to doorsteps in local towns and villages and the smaller local collections of supplies. This kind of work came readily to the girls, and when these light horses were also used for turning and tedding hay this too became one of their tasks.

During the later period of the war, when perhaps the older men retired and the girls became more experienced, many did take over the pairs of heavy work horses, with great success. A number of girls were able to compete in and sometimes win ploughing matches against strong male opposition in the horse classes.

The Land Girls who worked with the horses would surely all agree that you can get much fonder of a horse than a cow, pig or tractor, and that they made very pleasant companions through the days of working alone in distant fields.

Sheep & Other Animals

The fact that most shepherds are men with years of specialized experience behind them is probably the reason why very few girls became shepherdesses. It is possible too that a farmer could have such an important employee registered as working in a reserved occupation, and thus exempted from being called up. However, one Land Girl was commended later in the war for being in sole charge of a flock in North Wales for over four years.

A large number of girls were employed at busy times of sheep husbandry. Helping with sheep-dipping and the annual shearing were common. Girls also soon acquired skills in dagging in the dangerous fly strike periods, and trimming hoofs. In August 1945 two girls working in Devon won a sheep-shearing class in a competition at Morehampstead.

An enormous number of girls found that their day-to-day duties included seeing to the pigs, from the odd pig kept to provide bacon to quite large herds either housed or kept in the open. A girl recorded that she spent her days with a light horse and cart carrying feed out to the pigs and poultry kept in arks across the open fields. The horse was also used to pull the arks to fresh ground each day. Many Land Girls found that pigs can be very pleasant and clean animals when given the chance.

Most of the girls on smaller farms found themselves feeding the chickens morning and evening and being responsible for shutting them in safely at night. They worked too in more intensive egg production units, and girls were reported as working at the intensive rearing of rabbits for food.

One caring girl was released from Land Army duties to become a full-time assistant to a veterinary surgeon, having discovered an intense interest in animal welfare.

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Excerpted from The Women's Land Army by Bob Powell, Nigel Westacott. Copyright © 2011 Bob Powell & Nigel Westacott. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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