63 years on, land girl days recalled

9:22am Sunday 24th August 2008

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AN 86-year-old Overton woman has been recognised with a medal and a certificate for her efforts as a land girl during Second World War.

Winifred Dawe, who lives in Sprents Lane, enlisted as a land girl in 1940 and served until 1946.

"They should have recognised us after the war," she said.

"I'm pleased to have it, to think we've been recognised, because it was hard work, really hard work.

"I started on a farm here in Overton, and the farmer was a beast to work for. We were doing work that you shouldn't do as a girl."

Winifred said that her day would typically start at around 7.30am, and in the summer time may not finish until 11pm.

She described how she and a colleague used to have to go out at night in the pitch black to put out fires started by incendiary bombs on the fields.

She was removed from the Overton farm and sent to work at a farm in Steventon for a gentleman farmer who was on the verge of retiring to Scotland.

"He went with his wife to Scotland and took us to Scotland too," she said.

"I stayed with him until the end of the war."

Winifred got engaged to her husband William, now aged 88, just before the war broke out in 1939, but the pair didn't tie the knot until May 1946.

She said that after pulling some strings her employer managed to get William, who was away fighting at the time, a job on the same farm for three months so they could be together.

Winifred said she still keeps in touch with one of the girls who she trained on the farm, who is now 82.

When they get together, she said, they always have lots to talk about, 63 years on.