In my collage:
left: my photo of Betty taken just over a year ago.
centre: a photo taken by her husband, Michael, on her 86th birthday.
top right: Betty aged 4, in a studio portrait. When she was a child, Betty's family were told that she had a weak heart and they moved home so she would not have too far to walk to school.
Bottom right: a photo of herself which Betty, aged 17, sent to my dad when he was a PoW in a work camp in Germany. He kept it and brought it home with him.
In 1942, Betty was living in East Anglia and eligible for war work. She first worked making roads:
"I was called upon to join a team of workers who were working for The Ministry of War Transport and were busy widening the road near Lakenheath Airfield Suffolk, where the Americans were stationed. If I remember correctly, the planes were Liberators with a twin tail.
The job in progress was nearly finished when I started, and my job was to run a little motorised roller back and forth to level the ground. It only had two gears, backwards and forwards, so I was happy!
We were soon sent to another job further away, and we all had to be found billets, as it was too far to go each day. The job turned out to be constructing roads of concrete through the fir plantations at a place called Didlington in the Brandon area.
These roads were for use by the tanks of the Eighth 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 would be a huge hopper and we had to load this hopper with so many shovels of ballast (stones) and so many of sand, then a man would tip in the cement. If it were a windy day we would end up looking like ghosts!
If frost was expected we had to cover the wet concrete with sacking, as the frost would cause the concrete to crack. Lots of tanks came in while we were there. The Canadians were the maddest. They would go over the farmer’s cornfields without batting an eyelid. I loved to watch the signals they made when directing a tank into position. I managed to get a look over one; I was amazed how those big fellows could get in and out! I was also tickled when the Coldstream Guards went on parade there. The Sergeant Major’s voice was awful in the true sense of the word!"
Betty also worked in the Women's Land Army:
"Pulling sugar beet was a tough job. The plough would loosen them, and then we had to pull them out, slash off the tops with a hook, and lay them in neat rows to be collected later. It was winter when the sugar beet harvest came, and if the weather had been frosty or snowy, we had to wait until the earth thawed, then it became soft and soggy,. Many a time our ‘wellies’ would be left behind in the ground, which always caused a laugh.
I think picking brussels sprouts was the worst job. The weather would usually be bitterly cold, and snow or frost would be on the sprouts. Even with gloves on, our hands got wet and cold. Oh bliss when it was 'leaving off’ time!
Blackcurrant picking was quite pleasant, as it was usually hot weather when the fruit became ripe enough to pick. Apple picking was fine, as long as it had not been raining, because then the water on the branches would run down your sleeve, as you reached up to pick the fruit.
We had to work from eight am to five pm unless it was raining and looked set in by two o’clock. That was when the ganger would deliver his gem of 'It’s gonna clear up now directly later on!'
It was lovely to get back to the hostel in the evening, and have a hot bath or a good wash, change and have dinner. We were all on rations, and had a jam jar with our name on. In it was our allowance of sugar and some girls were extravagant and would ask me to ‘lend’ them a teaspoonful. I got it back when the next ration was given out."
Extracts taken from Betty's wartime memoirs lodged at the Second World War Experience Centre, Leeds.
©SWWEC
http://365project.org/quietpurplehaze/365/2015-04-28
