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Mary’s story — a Glasgow Girl in the Land Army

I grew up in Glasgow; I was 13 when war broke out. The school closed down but a teacher came to my home and taught a few of us until we finished our certificate. My childhood ended when war came — we had to grow up quickly. Glasgow was bombed, but not as bad as London or Coventry. Everybody helped each other out to get by.

I left school in April 1940 and went to work for a pawn brokers (my parents' choice) in Cowcaddens, a rough part of Glasgow, and I worked there until I was 17. It was a good job, I earned 8 shillings a week, but it was long hours for 6 days a week. The customers were lovely people, poor but doing their best — one person even pledged their false teeth! There was no stealing though. We had no air raid shelters there — we just used to pull the shutters down and hope for the best.

We saw a German plane shot down once, and I said “Good”, but my Mother stopped me and said “That’s a Mother’s son, no war is good”.

At 17 the choice was either munitions, nursing or the land army (and I chose the last — it paid 15 shillings a week). First I went to an agricultural college called Auchin Cruive for a month. The first week I started worked at 4 am with pigs. The second week I started at 4am milking. The third week was hens and ducks and the fourth week was field work. Then I was sent to a farm in Bar Hill in Ayrshire where I had to collect water every day. It was a good farm but I was quite lonely there. After a while I moved on to the village of Bar — there was a group of 10 of us who worked different farms every day — along with German and Italian POWs. I preferred the Germans as the Italians bothered us girls — one day when they had been going on about victory for Mussolini we pelted them with rotten potatoes.

At least I was out of the dangers of air raids in Glasgow. I worked long hours, but I could eat well on the 15 shillings a week.

I used to get home once a month. I was only 17, I wanted to stay near my parents so I never took up the opportunities to work further away.

I preferred dairy work. I was working a 70 hour week at one place — first milking, then harvesting, then helping the farmer’s wife in the evening to cook for all the workers.

I got engaged to a farmer in Bar at the end of the war and married him shortly after the war, but it didn’t last.

We used to come to Whitley Bay on holiday — and much later I married our landlady’s son and moved here to live.

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