Description
Object description
British land girl served with Women's Land Army at Drayton Manor Farm, Chichester, GB, 1915-1919
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Nutbourne, South Nutfield and Pulborough, GB, 1893-1915: early employment in Nutbourne; domestic service in South Nutfield and Pulborough; reaction to outbreak of First World War, 8/1914; decision to join Women's Land Army, 1915; attitude of local people and parents to enlistment. Recollections of period as land girl with Women's Land Army at Drayton Manor Farm, Chichester, GB, 1915-1919: training on farm and request of farmer for her to work there; nature of work with horses.
REEL 2 Continues: childhood work with horses; learning to plough; comparison between using wooden and iron ploughs; types of crops grown of farm; prior recollection of processing peas for animal fodder as child; types of individuals in Women's Land Army and their varying adaptability to farm life; contact with German prisoners of war; attitude of male farm workers to land girls; clothing worn.
REEL 3 Continues: clothing worn in winter and summer; laying straw on roads to reduce noise; footwear worn; attitude towards wearing trousers; working hours and pay as horsewoman; off duty activities; accommodation.
REEL 4 Continues: food; inspecting officials and receiving Good Service ribbon, 1919; participation in post-war service parade in Chichester, 1919; collecting straw and coal with horse and waggon; transporting quarried chalk for cow yard; lack of effect of war on daily life; working at night; working hours; evening activities; helping shepherd.
REEL 5 Continues: feeding sheep; taking sheep and cow skins to tannery; hoeing and storing mangels; wetting straw for thatching; isolated nature of work and degree of contact with other land girls; health; carter's attitude towards land girls and incident of his causing to accident to land girl.
REEL 6 Continues: farm hierarchy; contact with German prisoners of war; billeting with future husband's family; courtship and marriage, 1920; memories of Armistice Day, 11/11/1918 and service parade in Chichester, 1919.
REEL 7 Continues: Recollections of background in Nutbourne, South Nutfield and Pulborough, GB, 1893-1915: education; helping at home; weeding and stone picking on family's plot of land; rook tending; gleaning wheat; keeping pigs and preserving meat; reasons for going into domestic service.
REEL 8 Continues: domestic jobs in Nutbourne; going into domestic service; becoming cook; Girls' Friendly Society; obtaining references to join Women's Land Army; sources of news; domestic service employers; volunteer work for Red Cross.
REEL 9 Continues: knitting for troops; collecting wood as child. Recollections of period as land girl with Women's Land Army at Drayton Manor Farm, Chichester, GB, 1915-1919: conditions in billets; cure for head lice; Women's Land Army inspection of second billet; ablution facilities.
REEL 10 Continues: pay; supplementing food provided in billet; meals provided in billets; attitude towards horses and leading trace horse as child; attitude towards cows; training and working at farm.
REEL 11 Continues: impracticality of wearing corsets; use of hurdles for pitching sheepfold; transfer from horses to sheep on return of servicemen from war; description of sheepfold and arrangements for feeding sheep; grooming horses and bad weather jobs.
REEL 12 Continues: horse language used by carters; routine for cleaning dairy yards; riding horses back from fields and signalman's trick; her skill and affinity with horses; recites song 'Farmer's Boy'; singing and playing Jew's Harp whilst working.
REEL 13 Continues: spare time activities; degree of contact with colleagues in Women's Land Army; needlework; visit of VIPs to farm; presence of gypsies; contact with German prisoners of war; horse and waggon work at harvest time; harvesting with horse drawn binder; incident of hayrick catching fire.
REEL 14 Continues: method of dealing with hayrick fire; finishing hayrick edges; men's jobs done by land girls; sowing corn; isolated nature of farm work; contact with officers from Women's Land Army; lack of holidays; wearing of insignia; church visits.
REEL 15 Continues: participation in service parade in Chichester, 1919; Good Service award; farm jobs disliked by land girls; father's attitude towards her work with Women's Land Army; recites song 'A Jolly Boatsman' taught to her by father; ignorance about menstruation.