Essex Land Girls (23 page)

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 even 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.

T
HE
L
AND
G
IRL
’
S
S
O
NG

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 …

B
ACK
TO
THE
L
AND

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’.

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).

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
.

Essex Newsman
.

Essex Review
.

Gazette & Citizen
(Harlow)
.

Ilford Guardian
.

Illustrated War News
.

Interface Parish Magazine for Felsted, Flitch Green and Little Dunmow
,
June 2011.

Landswoman
and
The Land Girl
.

Suffolk Review
,
New Series 43, autumn 2004, article by Lynda Burrows entitled
‘
The Women’s Land Army in East Anglia’.

Those Blessed Girls
, Essex Media Workshop, Basildon.

This list details all the interviews used and featured in bold text throughout this book. Some interviews are recorded as oral or written histories in museums up and down the country, some can be seen on DVD, and some were undertaken by the author where possible.

Note that, because so many interviews did not reveal maiden names, the author worked with mostly married names for consistency. Permissions have been obtained from all the various appropriate copyright owners (individuals, websites, publications and museums) for all of the following. Any queries in this regard should be addressed to the author who can be contacted via her website,
www.deegordon-writer.com
:

Bell, Winnie – recording for Essex Media Workshop 2008, on DVD at Essex Record Office.

Bishop, Jack – interview conducted by the Essex Sound Archive 1997, Essex Record Office, SA 26/77/1.

Brown, Ellen (née Line) – interviewed by author on telephone, 27 March 2014.

Cardy, Ivy – see Winnie Bell.

Carpenter, Joan – for BBC ‘People’s War Archive’, submitted by the County Heritage Team 2004, with permission obtained from interviewee, March 2014.

Clarke, Audrey – interviewed by Jenny Brogan, September 1989, for defunct Harlow
Gazette & Citizen
, now part of Harlow Museum archive.