Betty is my dad's younger sister & my only surviving relative of that generation.
top left: On a seaside holiday together in Wales. We've always had a rapport & now can email each other every day.
top right: Betty in her Women's Land Army 'walking-out' uniform. She did her bit on the home front for the war effort working on farms in East Anglia, tending the cows and harvesting fruit & veg.
From her memoirs: "I was told to sit down on a 3-legged stool by the side of the cow, and she immediately kicked me over into the drainage area. "Git up and troi agin, gal" the cowman said. I did and no milk came forth. I was ready to quit but no such thing, there I had to sit until I got a trickle of milk to flow. Some girls were taught on special machines which resembled a cow's udder - I was literally thrown in at the deep end."
She writes that there was, however, "always a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs and fried bread."
Betty also worked for the Ministry of War Transport, constructing concrete roads:
"These roads were for use by the tanks of the 8th Army whose regiments were training for the second front, having come back from the desert. We had to make the concrete and it was hard work. There was a huge hopper which we had to load with so many shovels of ballast and so many of sand, then a man would tip in the cement. If it was a windy day, we ended up looking like ghosts!"
I find it amazing to think of her as a petite teenager doing this manual work. Nowadays she looks after everybody and also likes cooking, walking, swimming, travel and painting.
The other photos were taken in the last year or two. Betty is a great inspiration to me and I just hope I have a lot of her genes.
Sounds like she had a colourful life and from your photos she surrounds herself with colour. I think she must be one of those unique people who enters your life, leaves foot prints on the beach and then your life is never quiet the same. Happy Birthday Aunt Betty.
What a lovely lady she must be! People pulled together and worked hard during the war years - my Mum had loads of things to tell me before she died. It's so sad when they've all gone as there is so much we could learn from their bravery. If only people today worked as hard and stopped griping!
Fabulous story and what a woman!! Love her land army uniform - there were good things about the war and women's independence and the camaraderie must have been something. But the relentless work must have been really tough.
April 28th, 2012
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