life
THE ISLAND AT WAR 1939 - 1945
Porchfield in the 1940s. She mowed the
hay with a Fordson tractor converted to
tow an old horse drawn cutter and earned
three pounds a week for milking the
cows “Milking was all done by hand,”
she says, “and I got five shillings extra
after I passed a test. We had to clean
out the cowshed, load the manure into a
wheelbarrow and then push it up a plank
to the top of a heap in the yard.” Enid
won second prize for her thatching at
the Young Farmers Club but says cutting
squares out of the frozen thatch to feed
the stock in winter was hard work.
Accidents did happen and there was a
tragic incident at Shorwell in 1943 when
a seventeen-year-old land army girl called
Audrey Ruth Allen was killed. The Isle
of Wight Times reported that Audrey
had received instruction on how to use a
tractor by the men drivers at Bowcombe
and Newbarn farms but she was killed
when the tractor and trailer she was
driving overturned. The jury at the
inquest recorded a verdict of “accidental
death” and Audrey’s name is included in
the civilian list on Ryde War Memorial.
Helen Hart was in the WLA from May
1941 to March 1946. She worked for a
short time with the Forestry Commission
planting small trees and then moved to
Billingham Manor to pick sprouts, plant
and cut cabbages or pick up potatoes.
Her fingers were frozen stiff when the
sprouts were coated with ice and if it
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was cold or wet, the girls would shelter
under a hedge to eat their lunch and drink
tea from a thermos flask. “Spending a
penny was a problem.” Helen remembers,
“because the fields were some distance
from the farm. Two
of our girls were
from London and
they missed the night
life but the army
were in the manor
house and when we
went to the pub some
of the girls would
flirt with the soldiers
but I was very shy.”
Dorothy Wright
had romantic ideas
about farming until
she joined the land
army. Frightened
of cows, she says
she was given a
three-legged stool
and a bucket
and told to start
milking. Then came
the bad weather in
January 1947 when
the temperature
didn’t rise above
freezing for six
weeks. Dorothy had
to walk to work in
the snow and back
in the dark and it was so cold in bed she
wore pyjamas, jerseys and socks with coats
piled on top.
But she’d begun to enjoy milking,
listening to the sound of the cows
Island Life - www.isleofwight.net