Winning the War in the Fields - The Contribution of the Women’s Land Army during WWII

As we see people across the country growing their own fruit and vegetables during lockdown, and farmers struggling to be able to harvest the food in their fields, we are reminded of the women who worked tirelessly on the nation’s farmlands and market gardens to produce food during a time of rationing. 

Before the Second World War, Britain imported two thirds of the country's food by ship. When the war started in September 1939, shipping was attacked by enemy submarines and warships and cargo ships were requisitioned for war materials rather than food transportation. This resulted in food shortages, rationing of foods and materials, and increased necessity of self-sufficiency in food production.

Rita Woodward demonstrating her driving skills on Clophill Farm, 25 March 1941, Bedfordshire Archives, (Bedfordshire Times Archive), Ref: BTNeg1049/2

The first Women's Land Army was recruited as a civilian labour force during the First World War. Women were recruited to help farmers, replacing thousands of male farm workers who had joined the armed forces. Traditionally women's work on farms was limited to dairy work, looking after hens and egg production, caring for young animals and occasional seasonal harvesting work. Now women aged 18 and over were invited to do paid general work for local farmers. 

Take-up by farmers was slow because of conservative attitudes to the role of working women. It was difficult to persuade women to take on low-status work on the land. During the First World War, 23,000 women across the nation trained up and took on farm work, with 16,000 'land girls' working around the country. In Bedfordshire, 550 Land Girls worked for 90 farmers.

 Women’s Land Army Recruitment Parade, Bedford, 1 June 1940, Bedfordshire Archives, (Bedfordshire Times Archive), Ref: Z50/13/312

The Land Army was reinstated at the start of the Second World War, anticipating the need to recruit women to assist with farming and food production for soldiers abroad and the civilian population at home. Lady Denman, director of the Land Army, set up county committees. The WLA set up accommodation in the neighbourhood of farms for the land girls. Young women were expected to take over from experienced male farm workers who were called up into the armed forces, or left for better-paid war work elsewhere.

Sound Clip – Zoe Sinfield about her experiences joining and working for the Womens Land Army in Bedfordshire 

The Bedfordshire county WLA headquarters was at St. Paul's Square, later moving to Harpur Street in June 1942 where it remained until November 1949. 

First intake of Milton Ernest hostel land girls, Harpur Street, Bedford.

(Bedfordshire Times Archive), Bedfordshire Archives, Ref: BTNeg1290B

Recruitment locally was slow and only a handful of volunteers signed up, 24 were serving by end of December 1939, 53 by December 1940 and 140 by December 1941. The land girls were on minimum pay for a 50 hour working week in summer and 48 hours in winter. Pay was 28 shillings (£1.40p) per week, with 14 shillings (70p) deducted for board and lodging. This was less than half the national average for unskilled labour in other occupations and 10 shillings (50p) a week less than male agricultural workers. 

As a result of conscription in November 1941, Bedfordshire WLA had 506 land girls by December 1942, 792 by mid-1943 and 1006 in December 1943. 

Land girls dining at the new Milton Ernest hostel, 1942, (Bedfordshire Times Archive), courtesy of Stuart Antrobus, Source: B Nichols, Ref:BTNeg1315/1315B

From 1942 increasing numbers of women were being employed directly by Bedfordshire "War Ag" (Bedfordshire War Agricultural Executive Committee, or WAEC) and housed in hostels around the county. 

They were transported daily to surrounding farms, according to the seasonal needs of the farmers. Large numbers of recruits were from London, Essex and the northern counties of England (especially Yorkshire mill towns}.

There were seventeen residential hostels housing large groups of Land Girls and accommodation ranged from 16 in a farmhouse to 40 in huts and, exceptionally, to 100 in a large country mansion in Cople. Each hostel was encouraged to be self-sufficient in growing its own vegetables.

40 land girls were giving accommodation at the new Milton Ernest hostel, 1942, courtesy of Stuart Antrobus, Source: B Nichols. Ref:BTNeg1315/1315B

Hostel girls benefited from the company and support of other land girls both when working and during their time off, but life could be lonely and isolated for single land girls working on private farms.

Inter-hostel rivalry, Sharnbrook House sports day, July 1945, Bedfordshire Archives, (Bedfordshire Times Archive), Ref: BTNeg2141

There were three training centres at Luton Hoo, Toddington Park and Ravensden. Some Land Girls attended 4 weeks of induction training in milking, arable work and animal husbandry before being sent to work. 

Many land girls had to train on the job, but there were opportunities later to learn to drive tractors or do specialist training and pass tests to achieve proficiency certificates.

Farmers were set almost impossible challenges during the war. Bedfordshire War Ag. (Beds WAEC) set Bedfordshire farmers a target of 10,000 new acres to be ploughed up during 1940. Amazingly, they achieved 17,000 new acres of arable land.

Land Girls working on a haystack speaking to passing schoolboys at Great Barford, 13 May 1941, Bedfordshire Archives, (Bedfordshire Times Archive), Ref: BTNeg1081/1

Reclamation of previously uncultivated land was helped by the introduction of caterpillar tractors and other agricultural machinery from America, thanks to the Lend-Lease arrangement. Bedfordshire War Ag. was able to loan machinery to farmers who could not afford to buy their own and increasingly, land girls became expert mechanics on the farm. 

At the beginning of the war, two thirds of Britain's food was imported but by the end of the war, two thirds of Britain’s food was produced at home. Bedfordshire's land girls played a vital role in increasing self-sufficiency during the war. 

Land Girls in Bedford High Street, V E Day, 8 May 1945 (Bedfordshire Times Archive) Ref:

Z50/142/796

Their wartime contribution was finally recognised in 2007/2008 when the Government created a Veterans Badge which could be applied for by any surviving Land Girls (and Lumber Jills of the Women's Timber Corps) and events were arranged in every county to celebrate their wartime efforts.

I will finish with a poem from Hilda Gibson, who was a Land Girl and wrote about what it meant to her to finally receive recognition to her contribution to the war:

We're still standing

Rally round the badge girls,

Welcome it with pride.

Remember those no longer

Walking by our side.

Eighty thousand volunteers 

Of independent mind.

No marching, drilling or salutes,

Our roles were well defined.

Hard labour was our remit,

Each working hour to fill.

Livestock, crops and woodland 

We nurtured with a will.

We found fresh fields and pastures new 

In unfamiliar places.

Young sons of toil called up to arms,

Each man a girl replaces.

Frost bitten toes and fingers,

But wait! We soon will find 

As Shelley wrote: "If winter comes, 

Can spring be far behind?"

Our joy was summer sunshine 

And red gold autumn days

When leaves fell soft as snowflakes

And stirred the smoky haze.

As years roll by we live our lives,

The girls that time forgot.

We hoped one day someone would say: 

"You did well, thanks a lot".

Now better late then never,

At last we hear the call,

The Cinderella army 

Is going to the ball.

By Hilda Gibson, Land Girl

There are very few Land Girls still, alive. Zeita Hole nee Trott, who lives in Bedford, is one of them. Here are some links to her story from the BBC VE Day commemorations:

https://www.womenslandarmy.co.uk/?s=zeita+trott   

https://www.womenslandarmy.co.uk/ve-day-75th-anniversary/ 

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Stuart Antrobus for the information and images provided in his publication ‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world, The Womens Land Army in Bedfordshire 1939 – 1950’, and Bedfordshire Archives for the use of their archive images. The sound clips are taken from the BBC Peoples War archive for which I would like to acknowledge the work of Ann Hagen and Jenny Ford.

Written by Lydia Saul, Keeper of Social History

Henry Moore – Illustration to ‘The Rescue’

Of Henry Moore’s work depicting the Second World War, his scenes of Londoner’s sheltering in Underground stations are probably the best known, but there is another series, one which has a more subtle nod to the war effort.

In 1944 he was commissioned to produce six illustrations for the published version of The Rescue, a radio play by Edward Sackville-West based on the Greek poet Homer’s Odyssey. It was the first time Moore had illustrated a text.

Over two evenings from Thursday 25th November 1943 the BBC broadcast The Rescue. The story of Odysseus’ ten year battle to return home after the Trojan War is one of oldest poems in Western literature but Sackville-West deliberately reinterpreted it to resonate with current events. At the time of its broadcast, Greece had suffered over two years of occupation by German and Italian forces. The economy had been crippled and thousands had died in a country wide famine.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Penelope and her Suitors, The Odyssey, 1944

Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation

The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Bedford Collection

The Rescue focussed on the last part of the Odyssey. Odysseus, the King of the Greek island of Ithaca has failed to return from The Trojan Wars. His wife Penelope waits for his return but her palace is plagued by suitors, who believing her to be a widow, vie for her hand in marriage. Whilst Penelope thinks of various ways to keep them at bay, they overrun her palace, slaughter her livestock, drink her wine and plot to murder her son. Odysseus, after ten years, finally returns and with the help of his son, Telemachus, kills them all.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Death of the Suitors, The Odyssey, 1944
Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation

The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Bedford Collection

Sackville-West‘s parallels with the situation in Europe and the palace in Ithaca were clear. As was his call to arms to those listening to help liberate the lands threatened by the Nazi ‘suitors’.

Moore doesn’t shy away from the gruesomeness of the story. In his Death of the Suitors the walls and floors are covered in red as the suitors lay in various stages of dying. The solid rounded figures show the same influence as his sculpture which he had been prevented from making due to the war. In 1940 his Hampstead studio had suffered bomb damage and he and his wife moved to Perry Green in Hertfordshire, where Moore concentrated on drawing. He still journeyed to London where he found comparisons with his own sculptures and people sleeping under blankets sheltering in the underground. The same dark palette that he used for the shelter scenes is used in the illustrations for The Rescue but instead of wax crayon as a highlight he used chalk, again enhancing the sculptural form of his figures.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Shelter Scene – Bunks and Sleepers, 1941
© Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Bedford

The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery collection at The Higgins Bedford contains eight drawings by Henry Moore dating from 1935 to 1979. We are also lucky enough to have one of his sculptures, ‘Helmet Head No.1’, from 1950 which you can see HERE on Art UK.

Written by Victoria Partridge, Keeper of Fine and Decorative Art

Eric Ravilious - Observer's Post

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), Observer's Post, 1939-40, © Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery (The Higgins Bedford)

In the Higgins Bedford collection we have one precious Eric Ravilious watercolour, Observer’s Post from around 1939. If things were different you would have been able to see it in the 'Under the Same Sky' exhibition that was due to open in April. You would have walked into a gallery past works by William Holman Hunt and Ceri Richards in oak frames on dark blue walls. There might have been a family sitting in the armchairs to your right, reading aloud underneath canvas floating clouds. You would find the Ravilious in a section about the sun, next to a watercolour by Samuel Palmer. In a caption holder on its right, there would be paragraphs I wrote a couple of months ago when I was sitting in an office a few floors above. This will all happen, we just have to wait.

Until then, the Ravilious remains safely hanging on the metal racking in the dark Art Store. It has been hanging in the different incarnations of the Cecil Higgins art store since 1958 when it was bought on the advice of the gallery's art advisor, Ronald Alley (1926-1999), former Keeper of the Modern Collection at Tate Gallery. The previous year, Alley had made a list of artists to direct the gallery on the artworks they should be working to acquire. Ravilious’ name was included on the list, with a note saying ‘very scarce’. It seems, therefore, that they were very lucky to find ‘The Observer’s Post’ at the Redfern Gallery, London, the following April. 

Ravilious had painted the watercolour twenty years earlier. At the outbreak of war he had volunteered for the Observers Corps, ‘the eyes and ears of the RAF’. In the autumn of 1939 he spent his nights at a Post on the top of a hill near his village home in Castle Headingham, Essex identifying and reporting the movements of planes in the sky above. He paints the post at the end of his shift as the dawn sun, with a great yellow aura, rises. 

Ravilious was made an Official War Artist the following year, a scheme set up not only to record the war in art, but also to save a generation of artists from dying. It didn’t save Ravilious though, he died in Iceland in 1942. A search plane he was on failed to return and his body was never recovered. He was only 39 and this may be why Alley marked his work as ‘scarce’ - his career was cut so painfully short. 

The Art Store at The Higgins Bedford at the time of closure. Observer’s Post is below Edward Bawden’s Brighton Pier.

I always hang ‘Observer’s Post’ in the art store with a work by Edward Bawden for company. The two were best friends from their first day at the Royal College of Art, lived together with their wives in Great Bardfield and remained close throughout their life. Bawden didn’t find out about his friend’s death for four months as he was imprisoned in a Casablanca internment camp after his ship was torpedoed while returning home. When Bawden learned of his friend's death, he wrote to Ravilious’s widow Tirzah ‘I simply can’t tell you, or anyone else, or even myself what it is, or how much it is I miss by losing Eric’.

Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious in happier times working together on a mural at Morley College in 1930.

Written by Victoria Partridge, Keeper of Fine and Decorative Art

Victory in Europe Day Celebrations

Victory in Europe - V.E. Day was celebrated on 8th May, 1945. Today 75 years on we remember all those who were called up and served in the military army, navy and air force and especially those who were lost during the fighting of the Second World War. We remember those who served on the home front keeping civilians safe from the bombing raids through the effort of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Home Guard, the Women's Land Army who helped to keep the nation and troops fed, the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service who supported canteens and local initiatives, and other civilians who served their nation and communities during wartime.

At a time where we see our communities pulling together against the Coronavirus, we can reflect and compare our own situation with some of the challenges this wartime generation faced. This earlier generation made it through the fighting at the front, the bombs, the rationing of food and materials, the grief and loss of loved ones either serving in the armed forces or killed on the home front, and supported one another through it all. We can learn a great deal from their memories and their fortitude in such adversity. Today we remember the relief of that generation at the end of a long 5 year war that was experienced by this generation 75 years ago today. 

‘Well I don’t think any of us for one moment thought we wouldn’t win, I don’t think it ever entered our heads.  When you look back on it, it was certainly touch and go! 

You just saw more and more Airforce and there would be convoys, Army convoys.  As I say we lived in Goldington Road and I remember on one day there was a convoy.  It started near the rugger ground and it parked at the side of the road and there was about two or three miles of it and it just parked up for about six hours.  I know mother was busy making tea, providing them with tea. The particular ones that came into our house were Canadians - well she was running a cafeteria from the kitchen.’
Mr. John Crawley, a young man living in Bedford

V.E. Day Street Party Acacia Road Bedford, Photograph courtesy of Mr. M. J. Darlow.

‘We were given holidays straight away and then we celebrated in the town of course, in Ampthill. We had a dance on the Market Square and that was good. If you had a dance on the Market Square now nobody would go and dance but in those days you just did and we were doing the Palais Glide and the Hokey Cokey, everything you can think of, the Lambeth Walk, the old and young, they were all in.  I couldn’t dance at that time but everybody was on there having a whale of a time.

We had records.  It was Andrew Underwood’s father, he was good, he had that sort of shop, an electrical shop and he wired it all up, all these loudspeakers and that.  We all lent records to be played and that’s how it went on.  We had a lovely time and then at the end they all did the Conga down the streets. I’VE never forgotten it.  I mean everybody was so relieved and happy - they thought it was the War to end Wars. It was a lovely feeling really because you’d had five years of war and it was just, well, marvellous!
Mrs. Mary Smith (née Sharpe), then working at Elstow Ordnance Factory

You can listen to Mrs Mary Smith's experiences of VE Day in her own words here.

‘At the end of the war, when my mother and our neighbour and her daughter and I heard the end had come, we rushed down to the river to celebrate with all the Forces, and I remember people climbing lamp posts. Sybil and I were singing, ‘Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim’ which was a hit at the time. We went down to the river, across the Suspension Bridge to Russell Park and all the WAAFs and Americans and Forces were dancing and going mad.’
Mrs. Patricia Ingray (née King), a schoolgirl living with her family who had evacuated to Bedford

V.E. Day celebrations - Dancing in Russell Park, Bedford 8th May, 1945

© Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service (The Bedford Times Collection)

‘It was totally uneventful. We were operating the next day very early bringing back prisoners, so it was an early night to bed, that was it!  That was my V.E. Day!  We went to Lübeck and brought them back to somewhere or other.  We brought them back over the cliffs of Dover.’
Serviceman’s experience of V.E. Day, Mr. Reg Cann, then Navigator 1, 582 No 8 (PFF) Group, Little Staughton Airfield

‘The thing that upset my education was V.E. Day, because I was just about due to take Higher School Cert(ificate) that June and July and I was in the middle of swotting and it wasn’t really conducive to heavy swotting, that sort of thing.

At the beginning of the war, probably 1940, Mrs. Fowler bought a large tin of fruit salad and she said, ‘I’m not touching that! We are going to have that when the war is over!’ And it stayed in their larder for four and a half years until 1945 when they did have a little tea party in the back garden with Mr. and Mrs. Lamb from next door.  They opened this tin of fruit salad and it had fermented – it was delicious, it really was.  It was like having fruit in alcohol and everybody got drunk on fruit salad! Really, we finished up rolling about. We had cream with it of course that came from Stevington!

V.E. Day I remember because of the parades.  I think that the Bedford Modern Cadet Force opened their armoury and took out all the thunder flashes, as I’m sure did our Army Cadet Forces.  The ATC, I mean you couldn’t do anything, you’d only got morse tappers!  But they were marching down The Embankment throwing thunder flashes into the crowd or throwing thunder flashes down on the road and putting dustbin lids on the top.  They were walking down and banging dustbin lids together to make a good noise.  If you put a dustbin lid over a thunder flash it went at least 15 feet into the air and then you had to dodge it coming down. And we finished up having a parade through town. I think in the school mag there was a photograph of the parade, I remember Johnny Stockton was in it.  There was a large white flag with a big letter ‘O’ in the middle that somebody had run up.’
Mr. Alan Lock, an evacuee with Owen School. London to Bedford

The memories shared above were donated to the museum’s BBC People’s War archive, project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This project aimed to collect local individual’s valuable insights about the war before they were lost. Thank you to all the participants who shared their stories to this project, to Ann Hagen (previous Keeper of Social History) and Jenny Ford (Oral Historian) who curated this archive for future generations to enjoy.

Written by Lydia Saul, Keeper of Social History