VITAL ROLE: Trixie Clarke recalls her days as a member of the Land Army

DRESSMAKER Trixie Clarke has worked for many of London's top clothes designers such as Jean Muir.

But 60 years ago, rather as A-level students now have "a year out" before going to university, Trixie had a year away... as a member of the Land Army.

She - like many of her former colleagues, who helped produce food for British tables both during and after the Second World War - has just applied to Defra for her commemorative Women's Land Army badge.

Now 80 and living at Greenacres in Christchurch with former London fireman husband Bert, Trixie signed up for the Land Army in 1948 at the age of 19 after finishing her apprenticeship as a dressmaker, a job she had hankered after "since the age of three", she says.

She was born at Haxon on Salisbury Plain.

Her parents insisted that she complete the apprenticeship she had worked so hard for. But determined Trixie decided that she wanted that year working on the land.

"I was quite stubborn and I still wanted to go. It got it out of my system," she said. "But I still went back to dressmaking."

Trixie was posted to Piddletrenthide in Dorset where she and 19 other Land Army women shared a hostel, which she believes was previously a prisoner-of-war hut for captured Italian servicemen.

THEN: Trixie as a youngster in the Land Army

The hostel was perched on top of a hill and could be very cold during the winter.

There were four women to a room, a kitchen with a cook and a warden.

In 1948 there was still rationing in Britain.

The Land Army women were allotted various jobs on farms in and around the locality where there was a shortage of manpower.

They would set off in a lorry with sandwiches. But often farmers' wives would feel sorry for them and invite them in for lunch.

After an afternoon of hard graft they were ravenous and ready for the evening meal prepared by the cook.

Jobs were varied. Cutting kale by hand was particularly memorable for the cold numbness it brought to the fingers.

Then there was milking - by hand, not by machine - and the hot, sticky, prickly summer job of haymaking.

Trixie also has memories of cutting back undergrowth in Wareham Forest after a major fire there.

"Because we were in a hostel and not on a farm, it was more interesting," she said.

Entertainment was in the pub - The Green Man in Piddletrenthide - where some of the women were romanced by local lads. Four of those Trixie served with ended up marrying Dorset men.

Friday night was looked forward to the most. Trixie said: "The lorry used to take us around the farms and, on a Friday night it used to come and take us to Weymouth."

One of the girls, the late Noreen Hallett, who lived in West Knighton, Dorset, was a long-time friend.

Trixie still keeps in touch with her widower Rex. And she still regularly sees Mary Johnson (neé Hodge), who lives in Wolverhampton.

Trixie left the Land Army in 1949 and moved to London, when she married Bert.

They lived there for 26 years. Trixie then ran the Wool Shop in Beaufort Road, Southbourne, and latterly was at Roberta in Christchurch.

Now she is awaiting the delivery of her Women's Land Army badge, probably in December, which she will keep as a treasured reminder of those happy days.

7:00pm Monday 19th May 2008

Print   Email this   Comment