| We are grateful to Margaret McCutcheon of Wrenthorpe who, having
read 'The Maypole Stayed Up', recognised that the Society would
like to know about the experiences of her school friend who served
in the Women's Land Army in the district. She contacted Pamela
Dibb in Spain and convinced her that people would find interest
in an article about her life as a rat catcher.
Editor. |
We worked on farms which had taken out a contract with the War Agricultural Committee in Harrogate in the areas mentioned above. We would go once a month to perhaps four in a day (depending on the size of a farm and the area to be covered). The farmer signed our time sheets. When I worked with Edna and Miriam, we sometimes went to Tadcaster and Towton and on those days we used to hitch a lift on a flat bottomed lorry. I used to go down on one knee in the road and raise my hands in supplication. The bikes went on the back and we sat in the cab. The lorry drivers were very helpful and we were glad to have a bit of company. After the war ended and I had gone back to the Yorkshire Post, there were still lorry drivers asking "Where's that girl who goes down on her knees?"
We used to kill rats in the open sewers at Scholes, Barwick and Garforth. A bit smelly on a warm day, in fact a lot smelly, it always amazed me what wonderful tomatoes were growing there! I remember visiting Flying Horse Farm, Rainbow's Farm opposite the Fox and Grapes and Potterton Hall. It was all such a new way of life for me and I was a very shy person and kept in the background as much as possible and let the others do the talking. We enjoyed working at Potterton Hall, where the Royal Artillery Battery was stationed. When the men saw our bikes coming along Potterton Lane, apparently they would say "The girls are coming, watch your language". We were treated as something special. We always asked the men to show us their photographs of wives, children or girlfriends, so they knew that we were not looking for any hanky-panky and we could all be friends. One of the sergeants, Sgt. McNulty, (quite a senior man but not the B.S.M.) had a room with a lavatory and washbasin en suite and he used to move out during the time we were there and we could leave coats and gear there and use his lavatory, etc. The B.S.M. ("Battery Sergeant Major", the Royal Artillery don't have a C.S.M. "Company Sergeant Major"), I think his name was Sampson, was a pleasant man but he was the senior N.C.O. and we didn't see much of him. We could have lunch in the Sergeants' Mess and we looked forward to that. There was a sergeant at Potterton Hall, Sgt. Wood or Woods, who was quite good looking. He thought he was, anyway, and he was a bit of a pain in the neck. He always wore very shiny riding boots and fancied himself no end. He didn't like rats though and one day I put a very small dead mouse down the top of his boot. He was intent on catching me and whopping me but I fled to the cookhouse and Dickie Winn hid me in a cupboard. He gave me a big piece of apple pie to eat while I hid and he told Sgt. Wood that he hadn't seen me.
The Quartermaster Sergeant was a man we didn't like much, given to sarcasm and always trying to put us off the food. One day, when it was shepherd's pie, he told me it was made from rat's tails and bits of dead rats and things. I continued knocking it back and said "Sgt. Stokes, did I ever tell you about the rabbit I dissected at school?" I went into somewhat graphic detail and he left the table in a hurry, whereupon I said "If Sgt. Stokes isn't going to finish that, do you think I could have it please?" and I scoffed his plateful as well.
One day, my father, who was General Manager of the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post arranged a trip for the men around the newspaper offices. It was an interesting tour and they enjoyed a trip out. Capt. Bird, the Commanding Officer at Potterton Hall, was in my father's office and he said that he was always glad to see us at Potterton because 'they have such a good influence on the men.' We were like sisters to them all, admiring their wives and children and sewing on new stripes, etc.
I was up at 6 am., and had a quick breakfast while my mother made some sandwiches for lunch and a flask of coffee. I had to catch a tram from Headingley to the centre of Leeds then walk to the bus station and catch a bus to Whitkirk. A farmer attached to Temple Newsam let me leave my bicycle in a shed just near the bus stop. I met with the other girls at the home of one of them and we set off. We carried a box of bait or poison which weighed 15lbs. when full.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we put down non-poisonous bait to tempt the rats, left them alone on Thursday, put poisons down on Friday and cleared everything on Saturday. We were taught that we would find about a third of the rats we had killed. The others would have made for home and be out of sight. We had our lunch, sandwiches and a hot drink from the Thermos flask, sitting where we could. We were never invited into the farms. The only time we ate a proper meal inside was at Potterton Hall in the Sergeants' Mess. That was bliss because the cook, Dickie Winn, was a good cook and we appreciated being able to have a hot meal. On Thursdays we killed moles with worms, cut up and mixed with strychnine. We knocked down the molehills, made a hole with a stick about 1" in diameter and put chopped pieces of worm in them; not nice but very efficient and the farmers could set the cutters lower and gain more hay. We finished between 5pm.and 5.30 pm. We wore Land Army breeches, shirt, jumper and, usually, 3 pairs of socks and heavy wellingtons, in the winter, a greatcoat or drill "milking coat" and a heavy raincoat and a sweater. In the summer we wore drill dungarees and shoes. We worked on bicycles, going from farm to farm. We had to wear gloves all the time to prevent our scent from putting the rats off taking the bait. (The scent of a human being, I mean, not Chanel No. 5.) I found that, even in winter, the drill "milking coat" was quite warm enough over a shirt and jumper and easier to manage on a bike than the regulation greatcoat. After all, we each had good circulation and we were on the move all the time.
As to what we were paid, I don't remember. I only remember being very peeved that they took 3s 4d a week in income tax because, whatever we were paid, it was not a lot. A man used to come to a meeting point on a Friday with our wages. He came in a little War Ag. van. Occasionally, we would be completely "rained off" but mostly we worked and just got wet. If you got a hole in your wellies you would work in 3 pairs of wet socks all day but it never seemed to do us any harm. 3 pairs of socks (thick ones) were necessary to fill up the wellies, otherwise you got blisters on your blisters. We had one week's holiday per year and we all had to take it at the same time. The War Ag. just told you when it would be and that was that. Other Land Girls, working on general farming, hated us because they saw us riding by on bicycles while they were in the fields cutting kale. They were envious of our gloves and called us "The Kid Glove Killers". This did not bother us in the least.
Mostly the farmers were kindly men but there was one who was stone-deaf and didn't like Land Girls. He would curse us a blue streak and then, when you had laid out the dead rats to show him, he would pick them up and throw them at us. No good remonstrating with him because he couldn't hear, so we picked up the rats and hurled them back. For a while there would be a pitched battle in the fold-yard and then, honour satisfied, he would stump off and leave us to get on with burying the bodies. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If God won't have you, t'devil must." we used to say. A happy time? You had to do it, so you might as well enjoy it. I enjoyed the job in the Women's Land Army because, when I was called up, the Women's Services were full and we were given the choice of 'volunteering' for the W.L.A. or being drafted into industry. This would probably have meant working underground and pressing button B at depressingly regular intervals. From the age of 6 until I was 14, I had lived at Laurel Bank, Stanks and was familiar with the country areas around there. I enjoyed the fresh air and the countryside, although catching a bus from Whitkirk, walking up Briggate to get the Headingley tram when you were tired and dripping wet was a bit off-putting.
During 1944 I was transferred to Adel/Alwoodley/Moortown area to work with a girl whose "mate" had left the Land Army. I enjoyed working with her, and one week a month, we worked with a supervisor, Percy Bargh, a retired country policeman and a countryman through and through. We went all over with him and his little terrier and he taught us so much of country lore and every day was a delight. I left after the end of the war - as soon as possible. I went back to the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post to my former job as Deputy Chief Librarian. My job was interesting and I enjoyed it. After all, in a newspaper office no two days are the same and I prefer dry feet. I cannot tell you much about Barwick in wartime. As Land Girls, we never had much to do with the life of Barwick as a village. Apart from farms around and about, Barwick was somewhere we rode through on our way to somewhere else. However, we used to go to dances in Scholes Village Hall and the Potterton crowd used to go there and we must have danced every dance. We were their special girls. Afterwards we used to walk to Whitkirk and I stayed the night, sleeping three in a bed with Edna and her young sister, Edith. We had to be up early next morning.
I rather lost touch with Edna and Miriam. Edna Gaunt married one of the soldiers stationed at Potterton Hall. His name was Bill but I don't remember his surname. He came from London and I expect that Edna would go there after the war.
I have a photograph taken by the Yorkshire Post of the three of us on duty in the district. Edna Gaunt is the little one, Miriam Stockwell is the big blonde one and I'm wearing the turban. I am not afraid of rats but I'm terrified of spiders.
M. Pamela Dibb (née Osborn)
Alicante, Spain
