MAVERICK
Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/1.jpg
Tens of thousands of British women answered the call to work the land and forests, in place of men who had gone to fight in World War II.For many it was their first taste of independence, and for those from the cities it was a culture shock to suddenly find themselves milking cows, driving tractors, or felling trees.
They soon became known as the Land Girls and the Lumber Jills.
Nearly 70 years on the government is recognising their work with a badge of honour for surviving members.
Country girl
Joan Randolph (nee Bartlett) signed up to the Women's Land Army in 1941 and picked up her uniform of breeches, green tie and jumper. Working on a farm was certainly a change of scene from her day job at Prudential Insurance, but she was a country-dweller at heart.
"I was an outdoor girl, I loved animals and horses and riding at weekends. Going into the Land Girls seemed like the natural thing, rather than joining up."
'Milkmaids'
Among Joan's duties were bottling and delivering milk from the farm. Her annotated photo album refers to their role on one Berkshire farm as 'Saunders milkmaids, Langley, 1944'. "We did some of the milking too. You'd get used to your cows, it didn't bother you," she says.
Joan was one of 80,000 'girls' who, by the Land Army's peak year in 1943, had turned their hands to agriculture to help feed the nation at a time of food shortages, and to provide timber for the war effort.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/4.jpg
Driving skills
By the time war came Joan, then aged 20, was already an accomplished driver, and it was a skill she would return to after her time as Land Girl. "I remember that the day war broke out my family was coming back from the coast, and I was the one driving."
"The farmers liked having people who could drive, it was useful."
Making hay
Joan (second from right) served on a number of farms and estates in Wiltshire and Berkshire until she left on doctor's orders in 1944.Working on the land was often arduous and dirty work.
"We enjoyed our life but it was hard going," she says.
There was one farm at which she felt particularly aggrieved about the weekly bath routine.
"There was a list of priorities of who went into the clean water and who went in last. The Land Girls often came last," says Joan's husband Peter.
Bedroom bat
Farmers and landowners usually provided the women with digs, which sometimes meant living in the family home. "The first place I went to there were three Land Girls. I lived with the family for a while before I moved to the digs in a cottage. You had to fit in with them, all their meals and routines and whatever.
"I remember in one place there was a bat or a bird in the bedroom, which petrified me," she adds.
'Tremendously happy'
One of Joan�s favourite jobs during her years of service was working on the "vast estate" of the London Diamond Corporation. "I was very busy and tremendously happy there.
"I still think that my favourite job was with a large herd of milking cows. I loved getting them in to the parlour, milking them and then letting them out into their grazing areas."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/8.jpg
'Old fashioned romance'
Joan had not long left the Land Girls when she met Peter, who was working in the RAF film production unit at Pinewood Studios.By now Joan was in a different uniform, working as a driver for the US military HQ in London.
"Things had changed, I had changed, I couldn't go back to the office job," she says.
Peter and his colleagues had renovated a barn to hold dances for the troops: "We met at one of our dances. It was a good old fashioned romance," says Peter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/9.jpg
Long marriage
Peter, born in Vienna to a Polish mother and Hungarian father, fled to Italy then the UK when war broke out, and later joined the RAF. His parents died in Auschwitz concentration camp.
The couple, married since 1946, still live in the area in which Joan served in the Land Army, and have one son, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren .
Recognition, 2008
Acknowledging the women who served is a "nice idea", says Joan, who is among 50 former Land Girls picked by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to attend a ceremony at 10 Downing Street. "The Land Girls haven't had much recognition, so I think it is time. But you move on and live the life you are living don't you?
"I don't think about it too much now, only sometimes when I see them working out on the farms, with all the modern machinery that we didn't
Tens of thousands of British women answered the call to work the land and forests, in place of men who had gone to fight in World War II.For many it was their first taste of independence, and for those from the cities it was a culture shock to suddenly find themselves milking cows, driving tractors, or felling trees.
They soon became known as the Land Girls and the Lumber Jills.
Nearly 70 years on the government is recognising their work with a badge of honour for surviving members.
Country girl
Joan Randolph (nee Bartlett) signed up to the Women's Land Army in 1941 and picked up her uniform of breeches, green tie and jumper. Working on a farm was certainly a change of scene from her day job at Prudential Insurance, but she was a country-dweller at heart.
"I was an outdoor girl, I loved animals and horses and riding at weekends. Going into the Land Girls seemed like the natural thing, rather than joining up."
'Milkmaids'
Among Joan's duties were bottling and delivering milk from the farm. Her annotated photo album refers to their role on one Berkshire farm as 'Saunders milkmaids, Langley, 1944'. "We did some of the milking too. You'd get used to your cows, it didn't bother you," she says.
Joan was one of 80,000 'girls' who, by the Land Army's peak year in 1943, had turned their hands to agriculture to help feed the nation at a time of food shortages, and to provide timber for the war effort.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/4.jpg
Driving skills
By the time war came Joan, then aged 20, was already an accomplished driver, and it was a skill she would return to after her time as Land Girl. "I remember that the day war broke out my family was coming back from the coast, and I was the one driving."
"The farmers liked having people who could drive, it was useful."
Making hay
Joan (second from right) served on a number of farms and estates in Wiltshire and Berkshire until she left on doctor's orders in 1944.Working on the land was often arduous and dirty work.
"We enjoyed our life but it was hard going," she says.
There was one farm at which she felt particularly aggrieved about the weekly bath routine.
"There was a list of priorities of who went into the clean water and who went in last. The Land Girls often came last," says Joan's husband Peter.
Bedroom bat
Farmers and landowners usually provided the women with digs, which sometimes meant living in the family home. "The first place I went to there were three Land Girls. I lived with the family for a while before I moved to the digs in a cottage. You had to fit in with them, all their meals and routines and whatever.
"I remember in one place there was a bat or a bird in the bedroom, which petrified me," she adds.
'Tremendously happy'
One of Joan�s favourite jobs during her years of service was working on the "vast estate" of the London Diamond Corporation. "I was very busy and tremendously happy there.
"I still think that my favourite job was with a large herd of milking cows. I loved getting them in to the parlour, milking them and then letting them out into their grazing areas."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/8.jpg
'Old fashioned romance'
Joan had not long left the Land Girls when she met Peter, who was working in the RAF film production unit at Pinewood Studios.By now Joan was in a different uniform, working as a driver for the US military HQ in London.
"Things had changed, I had changed, I couldn't go back to the office job," she says.
Peter and his colleagues had renovated a barn to hold dances for the troops: "We met at one of our dances. It was a good old fashioned romance," says Peter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/uk_life_as_a_land_girl/img/9.jpg
Long marriage
Peter, born in Vienna to a Polish mother and Hungarian father, fled to Italy then the UK when war broke out, and later joined the RAF. His parents died in Auschwitz concentration camp.
The couple, married since 1946, still live in the area in which Joan served in the Land Army, and have one son, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren .
Recognition, 2008
Acknowledging the women who served is a "nice idea", says Joan, who is among 50 former Land Girls picked by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to attend a ceremony at 10 Downing Street. "The Land Girls haven't had much recognition, so I think it is time. But you move on and live the life you are living don't you?
"I don't think about it too much now, only sometimes when I see them working out on the farms, with all the modern machinery that we didn't
tfs
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