Life for a Londoner in the Land Army

October 21, 2020

My mother Eileen joined the Women's Land Army in June 1940. Her writings – public and private – give an insight into what life was like for a nineteen-year-old Londoner thrown into farm work in Somerset.

An article by Eileen was carried in the December 1941 edition of "The Land Girl"

Her article in "The Land Girl" painted a generally happy picture of her time but her later reminiscences revealed the loneliness of the city girl neither accepted by the farm workers or the farmers themselves – especially when she was placed on a farm in Street, where she commented “I worked for a bully”.

I have put together the following from notes in an old exercise book that I found when clearing her house about her first month’s “training” in Erdington, Somerset:

Everything was old and in need of repair at "Burnt House Farm". A disaster had struck it long ago and the present tenant, Mr Yatton, seemed content to include himself in the farm's ill fortune. Mild, unambitious, taciturn, he moved slowly about his 400 acres of pasture, content that the small herd of Shorthorns that grazed them would earn the monthly milk cheque and pay the rent.

Batchy Ground, Glebe Ground, Parson's Acre, Five Acres, Long Meadow … I knew every hillock, every patch of nettles, every overgrown hedge, every marshy patch by the river where the withies grew.

Perhaps you have seen rows of pollarded willows along the riverside in Somerset. Mr Yatton taught me how to make pegs for thatching from the pliant branches that we lopped off. He taught me how to milk – by hand, of course. There were few machines at ‘Burnt House Farm’. He taught me how to drive horses, how to lay and make a hedge, how to thatch a rick. I know how, but I would not always have the strength to perform these tasks. Praise is sparingly given on farms, but occasionally Mr Yatton would let fall "Now you'm gainin' " and I would be satisfied that I had pleased my master.

The Yattons had no children, a disappointment to them both. Mr Yatton patiently taught me all the skills he might have taught a son. Mrs Yatton was a snob. Quite the opposite of her husband, she possessed enormous energy and organising ability. She had once terrorised humble wives at the nearest Women's Institute but for some years had become less and less able to move freely because of an arthritic hip. Pain and frustration exacerbated the violence of her bad temper. Her outbursts were seldom directed at me for her knowledge of my grammar school education and Higher School Certificate protected me like a charm. At the first sign of explosion, Mr Yatton would walk away so that later, in a period of calm, his wife would confide "Samuel is too good for me".

It was the unmarried distant relative, Miss Piggott, who had been given a roof over her head in return for unlimited services who received day in, day out, deafening blasts of abuse.

The front of the house, rebuilt after the fire, had almost the appearance of a suburban villa. However, I never once passed through the front door nor saw inside the front parlour. Here, once a fortnight on Wednesday evenings, Mrs Yatton would hold bridge parties for a local doctor and a solicitor and his wife.

Mr Yatton, Miss Piggott and I remained in the kitchen within solid stone walls that for centuries had kept out the wind and mist from the Bristol Channel. Embers of apple wood glowed in the wide hearth. Miss Piggott crouched mumbling in front of it warming some milk in a little saucepan. I would be sent to draw some cider from a barrel in one of the cold dark cellars among the outhouse at the back.

I worked at the farm while my family survived the raids on London. Safe and well-fed, how could I complain to anyone of the desolation that overwhelmed me. I was proud of my newly acquired skills, attached to Mr Yatton but the length and monotony of those dark days are hard to convey.

At first, I suffered from the cold and wet - the clothes provided by the Women's Land Army were ridiculously inadequate. The Yattons took me to Bristol and showed me where to buy thick corduroy breeches, leather leggings, hobnailed boots. I collected numerous old raincoats and learned to make use of the "farmers friend", a sack across the shoulders held together by string. Protected by these and my felt Land Army hat that became more and more shapeless, I was cold no more but what was I? Who would ever know that within was a girl?

Day after day I cut into the hayricks with a great triangular knife, climbed down ladders with the bale on my head, loaded the cart, drove to the field to feed the young beasts there. Day after day, morning and night, milk and muck. On Sundays, I changed into my best breeches and shoes from 10 am till 3 pm.

Mr Yatton called me at 5.30 a.m. and my first job was to untie Patch, the dog, and bring in the cows. In the dark field their shapes were indistinguishable. Patch would rush off, I would call, and a hoarse cough, a rustling and a stretching and urinating would tell me in what part of the field they had sheltered that night. We moved about the shed in the pitch black. The cows knew their own stalls. It could not be lit in any way for how do you black out a cowshed?

Those like DB Lawrence write rapturously of the farm workers pressed against the belly of the cow squeezing forth the life eternal. I experienced none of these raptures. As I moved with my stool and bucket from cow to cow obscure terrors filled my veins. I hid my tears and longed for the light.

When the milk had been cooled and I had rolled out the churns to the gate and could smell bacon frying I cursed myself for a fool. I hoped the postman would have something for me, a brave letter from my Dad perhaps. One old school friend kept in touch. The others were scattered I knew not where.