Freda McEwen
Freda McEwen, Land Army
B: Women played an important part in the war, could you tell me about your role on the home front?
F: During World War II, all the young men were away fighting; there were no younger men around. So, they started to call up the women, they did it in age groups. Mine was the eighteen to twenty-one age group. Next was the twenty-one to twenty-five, if the girls weren’t already married.
As women, we had three choices. We could sign up to be a nurse’s aid (which I had no desire to do!), work in an ammunition factory, or sign up for the land army. If we signed up before they called us, we would be promised they would pair us with our friends, we would have weekends free, and we wouldn’t have to wear a uniform on weekends.
B: What did the uniform look like?
F: We had to wear tote collard overcoats, riding britches that went into high woolen socks, a green v-neck sweater, shirt, tie, and dungarees in the field. I though it was awful!(laughs)
B:Where did you live while you were in the land army?
F:Oh, I lived on a farm some of the time, and then most of the time I lived in a mansion that had been converted into a hostel. The area of England I was issued to was beautiful; it was in the Cotswold’s. My friend Anne and I lived in the Cadbury mansion. Our dining room was the ballroom! And the bedrooms were huge! Six could fit comfortably in one room.
F:When Anne and I first entered the land army, we were sent out to a farm to work and live, and we hated it (laughs)! The farmer treated us like maids; he made us eat all our meals in the kitchen. He was very prejudice against women, many of the farmers were at that time. I don’t blame him though; I didn’t know the back end of a cow from the front end!
F: We arrived at one farmer’s house with two tall girls. He said he would take the tall girls, but he wanted to send us back. He was told he had to take us thought, and we came back every day just to be fired every night. I learned a lot from him. He taught me how to drive a tractor. Oh, that first day was awful, though! We had to toss hay up into a loft using pitch forks; we had such bad blisters on our hands. I worked for him for one month.
B:What was it like living in the hostel?
F:Well, we had a matron who would watch over us. She drove us crazy! Every morning she would ring a bell to wake us up. We were so sick of it, and finally one girls took it and buried it in the back yard! (Laughs).
B:It sounds like you had a good time despite the hardship.
F: We did. Oh we did everything the men did. We had a lot of freedom, and we had a pretty good life; in fact, it was the best time of my life. We were farm away from home, and no one to watch us. (laughs)
F:But work was tedious, and it was hard. We worked ten to twelve hour days. Sometimes we were even too tired to change into our bed clothes.
B: Wow, those must have been tiring days. What did you do if your spare time?
F: We went dancing. We dated the American and Canadian soldiers; they were the only guys around!
B: What was it like before you were in the Land Army?
F:I lived about two hours from London, and the bombers came from the south on the route they took to London. We had a lot of the bombings that were meant for London.
F: It started in ’38 and went on for six years.
F: While I was younger, it was just annoying to be honest. Imagine yourself as a teenager, and every night going down into the shelter. My grandma would not let my sister and I talk at all, we had to be silent.
B: That does not sound like much fun.
F: It wasn’t! One time, it flooded, and we brought the iron part into the house. We used to tell my grandmother to let us make a cup of tea for her. She would say, okay, but you hurry and come right back! My sister and I would go up stairs to see what was going on. We could see the bombing of London in the distance.
B: That must have been frightening.
F: Well one time the house caught fire due to a bomb. The bomb was called a Mulletoff Cocktail, they would drop them by the basket load. The bomb went right through the pillow where someone would have been sleeping. Then, it got caught in the rafters above the dining room. It was scary that night! When the sirens went off, my sister wouldn’t come in the shelter; she never left the house without her dog. She had to leave the dog inside that night. When the bombing stopped, she opened the front door and the dog ran out! I can still remember the fire marshall yelling at her as she ran after it.
B: Did people unite during such a scary time?
F: Yes, I think they did. It brought people closer together. Neighbors became much closer, we looked out for each other.
B:What were some sacrifices you had to make because of the war?
F: We learned to live with rations. Food was very scarce. England is a small island, and it can’t support itself. There were U boats all around it perimeter, we had to learn to get by on very little.
F: We received 2 ounces of butter a week per person, 4 ounces of tea, a tiny bit of milk. 4 Ounces of meat per person a week, and one egg a month (if we were lucky, and sometimes it would be rotten by the time we got it). We could find cheese and potatoes pretty easy. But I didn’t see a banana or orange in six years.
F: We even had to have coupons for clothes. You couldn’t touch nylons during the war.
F: Sometimes the girl would make earrings out of buttons. Everything was very meager.
B: What was your opinion on Winston Churchill?
F: He was a wonderful speaker. He could really rally the people, never once did we think we would loose the war. It was not until after the war did we realize just how close they were to winning. Everyone was so unified.