Flossie and I had our first leave in September; we were given a train voucher to Sheffield. We were only given two of these a year. Our pay was £1.4sh (£1.20) a week, out of these we had to buy everything but our food and lodgings. I was soon at the Cutlers' Hall dancing with my friends, telling them all about my life in the Land Army, had I milked a cow? No, I hadn't, and I never did all the three years I was in Cornwall. A few partners were left to have a good dance with, but mostly they were in uniform now like I was. Norman who was in the Navy who I hadn't seen for awhile was about to finish his leave while I had just started mine. We made a date to meet the next night to go to the Cinema House in Barker's Pool to see 'Lorna Doone.' It was the most boring film I ever remember seeing. The most entertaining thing was Norman trying to get his pipe lit, amid clouds of smoke; at least you couldn't see the screen. He didn't take me home, he lived at Walkley and I at Darnall, we exchanged addresses and wrote to each other until 1945.
Back off leave, we left Kenegie, and were sent eventually to Pencubitt Hostel, Liskeard. This was another lovely hotel taken over during the war. It was here I spent the happiest two years of my life. There were lots of American camps near Liskeard. Saturday nights a lorry would turn up at the hostel and take us to their camp. We'd dance to a band playing Glen Miller favourites, String of Pearls, Pennsylvania 6500, and Moonlight Serenade. With tins of spam, chocolates or 'candies' and cartons of 200 Lucky Strike cigarettes, we felt like film stars.
Most weekends some of us would go to nearby Looe, a beautiful place, with Banjo Pier and lovely coves. We had all made friends with Americans, they were a great crowd, very caring and thought the land army uniform very cute. I know we were all virgins, otherwise all living together we would have known. It never entered our minds to have sex, we had such happy lives with lots of fun at work and play. To be honest, the fear of getting pregnant kept us on the straight and narrow. I only had to think of my Dad saying, "You bring any trouble home!" My American friend was called Louis Perez. I'd come on a week's leave, while home I got a telegram saying "Missing you, Love Louis." Father said, "Who the hell's Louis?" When I sent him cartons of Lucky Strike, tins of Spam etc, he wrote to say, " He doesn't sound a bad chap that Louis."
There were about thirty of us at Pencubitt, some were there for just a few weeks and then were moved on to another part of Cornwall. We would help each other if we were short of anything; none of us had any money to spare. When we got our weekly cheques for £1.4sh. a lady would come every Friday night and cash them for us, insisting we bought a sixpenny saving stamp. Saturdays we would be busy doing our washing, going into town, or going to Plymouth or Looe. Although it had been heavily bombed all around Plymouth Hoe.
One girl came off leave and told us about a brilliant idea of how to get knitting wool without coupons. You bought all the little balls of darning wool you could get hold of, as these were not on coupons, then with a little water you joined the ends, rolling them together and believe me when they dried you couldn't pull them apart. Soon you would have some decent balls of wool. We all helped one of the girls to knit a bathing costume she had a pattern for. I was at Looe with some of the girls having fun in the sea, when we heard cries of "Help." Her couponless bathing costume had disintegrated in the water leaving her in the "nuddy!"
Most nights sailors from Plymouth and Torpoint would come to Liskeard. I think the Land girls at Pencubitt were the attraction as there were some lovely looking girls there, Robin Kellner, Renee Fairfax, Thelma Dobson, Jean Stanley, Doreen Hill, Marian Cross, Mary Kemp, Vera Hoskins, Alice Talling and Nell Williams all met their husbands at Liskeard or Plymouth and have all celebrated their Golden Weddings.
One of my friends, Helen Nelthorpe, celebrated her 21st birthday on July 30th 1944. We all went to town to celebrate. So there we all were in the ‘Station’ or ‘Fountain’ pub when some sailors laced my beer with navy rum. Not used to drinking I soon became legless and the next few days are a blur to this day. I know they carried me back to the hostel, up the back staircase and placed me in the bath, my mouth next to the plughole. I must have found my legs again as during the night I came down the main staircase (out of bounds to us) and confronted Mrs Bull the Warden. The next day I was helped into a lorry to go to work fruit picking, placed under a tree where I slept myself sober. I've never had another rum to this day.
Flossie's American friend was about six foot four, hugely built, and would come to the hostel and say “Is Flossie in?” in his slow drawl. Well she was a big lass too and it was something to see when they jitterbugged together. Before D-day we would all be in the lounge discussing the shortages we had with the war. Flossie's friend said, "When we get over there (France) they'll be two of us sharing this cigarette." I said, "You want to see us before pay day there's four of us sharing a tab end."
Just before 'D' day, Marian married her American boy friend. They had to have a wedding at Pencubitt because he wasn't allowed to travel far. We all clubbed together our clothing coupons we could spare, so she could have a new dress, not a proper wedding dress of course. She'd had her engagement ring sent from America in a box of chocolates. How's that for 'The Lady Loves Milk Tray!'
Tragically he was killed on 'D' day, 6th June 1944. I've often wondered what became of her, I did hear she went to live with his parents who were quite wealthy. Since we all left the Land Army, nearly all from Pencubitt have kept in touch. We have regular reunions at each others homes, all our children and grandchildren have joined in the happy times. Robin who married Paul her G1 the 18th August 1945 the week before I did has been back to England many times from America. She's been asking me for years to stay with her, as we are both widows now, I decided to go last September. When you get turned seventy and you are lucky enough to have good health you have to go for it. Dad always said your allotted time was three score years and ten, after that you lived on borrowed time. I realise I have lived the longest in my family. Mother died at 37, our Edna 17, Dad 65 and our Margaret 69. You have to live one day at a time, Dad had a saying, 'When Him above drops his hobbing foot on your "nut" it's no good saying I don't want to go.'
The war was finally over in September 1945; I had married Norman August 25th. We hardly knew each other, this period of my life turned out to be very mixed up and unhappy. We had four wonderful children together, and were a great joy to me. The lessons my Father taught me were about duty, pride, and commitment, looking after your own. But Dad, you forgot about love, and Norman wanted more than I could give him. The result was we were divorced in 1960 and I was left to bring up our four children on my own. There was no single parent allowance in those days. I had £9 plus eighteen shillings family allowance to feed, clothe and educate the five of us. Well, we managed, only with a good sense of humour! You can't have less than nothing!
By the end of 1960 my Dad really was living on borrowed time, my divorce had yet to be finalised, our Margaret and Bill had moved from their little palace on Neville St. to a brand new two bedroomed maisonette on the Rolleston Estate. Why, she had more than I did, a bathroom. They had a son in 1947, by the time he was two she went to work at Stanley Tools at Rutland Rd. She still piled the chairs on the table and ‘bottomed’ a room; she got a gas copper and still boiled her ‘whites’ and starched almost everything. She would swill the landing leading to the forty-eight steps after she finished washing, and curse as she swept the whole staircase. "Some of 'em must have been brought up in pig styes." She took a motherly concern about my children. But they always enjoyed going to Auntie Marg's even though she'd give them a piece of her mind if they were naughty. My daughter used to go on the bus every Sunday for her dinner and a bath. I'm sure she looked on her as the daughter she never had. I don't think our Margaret realised how hard it had been for me to divorce Norman. She was of the old school, no matter what unhappiness you had, you put up with it. It was at this time in my early thirties that I missed my Mother more than at any other time in my life. I had no one to talk to or help me. There was only seven years between us, it seemed a lot when I was seven and she fourteen. Our Margaret had had a hard life and she had enough without my troubles.
Dorothy and Margaret in townHe had passed no strong religious beliefs to me, he said your religion was the way you lived, you could only do your best. He had said the bible was the greatest fairy story ever told. As a family we never went to church, but we knew right from wrong. I think religion was too complicated for him, the bible contradicted itself too much. You came into this world with nothing and after your allotted span you left with nothing, whether we shall all meet in the hereafter is a mystery no one has proved. I think my Dad was wise to say "They'll be a time when there won't be a time, and that will be the Time!"
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