Looking back on life as a Land Girl

Dorothy Taylor was a Land Girl, one of the Women’s Land Army that helped the war effort from 1939 to 1950. She recalls her time on farms in Hertfordshire and in Bridlington with great affection and is heavily involved with making sure the WLA is not forgotten today.

Taking part in parades, organising weekends and giving talks to schools are all part of her hectic schedule, and now Dorothy is also adding her considerable knowledge to a brand new exhibition that will be opened at the Yorkshire Museum of Farming next year depicting life as a Land Girl.

“We were the dolly birds of the day. All the Land Girls I ever knew were attractive. We would put on our tangerine lipstick, a real bright orange, and our perfume would either be Phul Nana, Evening in Paris or Poppy.”

Born in Carcroft, near Doncaster, Dorothy’s father was moved to Stevenage in 1939 to work for ICI. The family moved to Letchworth and then Hitchin. Dorothy left school at 14 and initially worked for the Country Gentleman’s Association.

She joined the Women’s Land Army in 1944.

“You were meant to be 17 to join up and I was only 16, but the local milkman and dairy farmer Mr Mansfield asked my mother if she knew of anyone who could take over from the previous Land Girl he’d had, as she had been living with us.

“He had 40 dairy cows at Thistley Farm including a Jersey and a Guernsey for the butterfat content. He liked to have Friesians but he would buy any type of cow he could afford so we had quite a selection.

“I didn’t know a thing about farming or cows. For the first week I just looked after his milk round and helped a little in the dairy, but then one day he gave me a stool and a bucket and asked me to try milking a cow. Well I was there pulling away for a long time and I had about six little drops in my bucket when he came back. He told me not to get upset as everyone had to start somewhere, then he showed me how to stroke 
the teat.”

Dorothy’s favourite time was delivering the milk.

“My day started at 5am. I didn’t even know that time existed in a morning before working on a farm. My sister Clarice and I lived in a cottage together. I would have a 20 minute walk up the country lane, go over the fence and across a field, pick up the horse, Bess, that would lead the float. Then I’d milk the cows with Mr Mansfield until 8.30am, have breakfast, and off I’d go delivering.

“Milk was rationed to two and a half pints per person per week but children received milk every day and schoolchildren had the third-pint bottles. I had to fill 400 third pints every day. I had 200 customers overall.

“Some people preferred their milk in cans as they said they didn’t know what had been in the bottles. They were right sometimes too. I remember picking up one or two and smelling paraffin!

“When I’d picked up the empties I would wash them in caustic soda and hot water. I used plenty of Snowfire ointment and olive oil on my hands, and went to bed with gloves on to stop my fingers from cracking.”

Dorothy’s most embarrassing moment as a Land Girl was when she had to lead the farmer’s bull from one end of the village to the other to do what comes naturally.

“I knew that the bull went out with the cows each morning and he would go down the field, but I wouldn’t see him performing.

“But then two or three farms in the village didn’t have a bull so the farmers tended to walk their cows up to the farm to be served by him. It was quite a shock when I first saw it in action.

“At 16 I hadn’t a clue what they were doing. I had to walk right down the village holding on to Tom and obviously all the men knew what was going on. I got a lot of wolf whistles and quite a few asking whether we’d had a result!”

The catalyst for Dorothy and her sister Clarice’s return home to Yorkshire was Mr Mansfield’s son returning from the RAF.

“We saw an advert for two Land Girls in Bridlington at Easton Farm, which at the time was farmed by Mr Hood (Harry). It’s now a garden centre. He had 25 cows but no milk round.

“He also had a lot of land and that’s when I started working with crops.”

It wasn’t Dorothy’s favourite type of farming, although it did introduce her to her future husband. Her first problem however was coping with the East Riding dialect.

“Mr Hood told us to go in this field and ‘look corn’ and neither Clarice nor I knew what he meant so I asked the foreman. He told us it meant to look for tistles (thistles) and nettles, or ‘owt that’s growing that shouldn’t be’. We spent three weeks just taking weeds, dandelions, anything we could out of an eight acre field. It was so boring.”

Dorothy married Charles and has never left Bridlington since settling there in 1947. She has never forgotten her time as a Land Girl.

“The exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum of Farming is very exciting. I’m looking forward to helping make it a great success.”

Drawing on wartime life

The Women’s Land Army Exhibition is in its early stages.

It is a major project for the Yorkshire Museum of Farming, and it is currently in its research and development stage.

There is a special family activity day being held 
on Sunday, October 21, entitled ‘The Big Draw’ when the organisers are encouraging children and adults to make a drawing 
of a Land Girl.

Contact: 01904 489966 for further details.