Interview with Women's Land Army volunteer in Bedfordshire during Second World War

  • Women's Voices and Life Writing
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Title
Interview with Women's Land Army volunteer in Bedfordshire during Second World War
Notes on Audio Quality
Please note that there are multiple tracks to this recording. Use the arrow buttons to navigate to further tracks. There is a long pause in the audio from 28 to 41 minutes.
Interviewer
Semeraro, Carmela
Document Type
  • Oral history Recording
Date
22 Apr 2002
Interview Date
22 Apr 2002
Biography
The interviewee was born in Hulcote on 24 January 1926, and her parents were from Pottsgrove and Woburn, and her grandparents from Reynold and London. Her sister was 3 years younger and her brother born when she was 12. Her dad died young, her mum lived to 98. Her dad worked as a horseman, then tractor driver at Hulcote Moors Farm. Transferred to Woburn Sands Elementary School at 11, which took children from Salford, Ridgemont, Aspley Guise and Woburn Sands, and left when 14. She had brief a job in a clothing factory, making items for the army, then testing electric light bulbs at Crysalco. She also found work through Dad at Hulcote Moors Farm, helping with threshing, then assisted the Women's Land Army. The main work she did at the farm was as a milkmaid. She took part in parade of Bedfordshire land army girls inspected by 19-year-old Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth) in Bedford, 14 Feb 1946. Her husband left the RAF in 1947 and got a job with Frost's nurseries in Woburn Sands. She was a Fire Guard. Post-war, she married and had two girls, she then began part-time cleaning for a local family in the 1950s.
Length (minutes)
71
Copyright and Source Archive
Material sourced from Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service