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24 — Jessie Hall (born 1925) remembers her work in the Land Army:

“I didn’t want to join any of the fighting services when the time came, and you could join the Land Army then at a very early age, I think it was from sixteen you could join if you felt that way inclined. Now I met a girl who was in the Land Army, she was the picture of health and she loved the work, and so I thought this was for me. When I went for an interview I remember the lady said ‘Do you like cows?’ and I said no! What are you joining the Land Army for? I said I don’t mind doing anything, but nothing to do with cows, I just didn’t like them. She said well, we’ll see, so eventually when I came to Stratford I was doing other work, like we would go out harvesting, haymaking, threshing, hoeing, and I worked all round Stratford doing this as many more girls have here in Stratford, until I worked for Colonel Rees-Mogg at Clifford Chambers; he asked me to go and work for him because I was there, billeted in Clifford.

There were twelve of us. We were from all over Birmingham, we didn’t meet until the day we began, the twelve of us, and I am still in touch with them now. But it was a great shock, I was expecting a lovely healthy life, but I didn’t expect blisters! I would only be sixteen or seventeen, very young, because in those days we left school at fourteen. I had been working for two years, so I would only be sixteen. The hostel where we stayed at Clifford Chambers was a beautiful, lovely place, and the cook was a little Austrian man, German/Austrian, a Jew and his wife — and they had been turned out by the Germans, so naturally they had come here as refugees, but they were super cooks, really super cooks, so it was like stepping into Heaven to go to a place like Stratford and have super food and good lodging; we were very very happy. His name was Wachs, Mr and Mrs Wachs, and they were lovely people, and we enjoyed our stay.

And then the girls were going to move on, they were closing the hostel and moving to Wolverton — some to Wolverton, some up to Welford on Avon and I was working for Colonel Rees-Mogg at the time who lived at the Manor at Clifford, and he said would you stay on and work for me permanently, and I said I don’t mind truly, it’s work, I don’t mind, so a friend of mine, the two of us agreed to stay on in Clifford and work for him, but I didn’t realize he had intentions of me milking cows, and I didn’t like cows, not a bit.

One day he said, bring that stool and bucket, and he tethered this old cow up and he said there’s your stool and there’s your bucket, and I said ‘I don’t want to,’ and he said, ‘it’s not what you want, it’s what you have to do, there’s a war on, did you know?’ So much against my will… and it’s difficult at first, I know with the strain my wrists swelled, but I grew to like cows and I got very fond of them, every one had a different character you know — they all look alike in a field, to see a field full of cows, but one by one they come in, they each knew their own place, and they were each different. You could talk to them, they would each respond differently, and I still remember them with a lot of affection. One in particular, Rachel, was a youngster, she had had a very bad fall as a calf and it had distorted her back; she had a twisted back, she was a poor little thing to look at her, but she was the most beautiful,gentle thing, and I am sure that you made contact with them. Anyway, I grew to enjoy it, dairy work, and milking, and I was milking then until the end of the War.

The rest of my friends were all off at other farms, where WARAG, the War Agricultural folks provided the bikes — quite a lot of them were men’s bikes, they hadn’t got a lot of ladies’, but they were bikes and they went, and there was a chappie in Stratford, Cyril Knott, I think he’s still — I don’t know if he’s got a place in Western Road, Cyril Knott, he had an agreement with the WARAG to repair punctures, and any bicycle repairs he would do, so if you got a puncture you just took it to Cyril.

Do you know, I was trying to remember how much we were paid, I think it was nineteen shillings a week. The Forces then were paid a shilling a day weren’t they, the wartime forces, I think they got a shilling a day, and I thought we were very well off because we got a little bit more, I think it was nineteen shillings as far as I can remember.�

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