BackStory Episode 8

Marguerite and friends at Oja de Agua, 1939

Episode 8 is a contrast of the lives of the two girls:  It is the Fall of 1939, and Maude has been evacuated to the Welsh countryside as war begins in Europe.  Marguerite leads a seemingly carefree existence on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

In Costa Rica, as December approaches, the temperatures are warm and tropical for Marguerite.  She goes swimming with friends; this is a photo of when they are at Oja de Agua, in their very fashionable swim-suits, made of cotton.  Polyester fabrics wouldn’t be invented until 1941 and Spandex not until 1959.

The letters at the end of the episode, from Marguerite’s father, are read in the podcast by his great-grandson, my son Michael.  My Grandfather Frost, Marguerite’s father Tom, spent his life as a rancher in Montana, far from the life of academia that his father and daughter adored.  (see his photo and others from this episode on the Instagram account:  fondlyyoursmarguerite)

In England, it’s harvesttime for Maude and the other evacuees who have been sent away from the cities that were feared to be targeted by bombing as soon as Britain declared war against Germany.

That Fall and into the Spring of 1940, no bombs fell on England.  Europe seemed ‘quiet’ after Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, despite both Britain and France’s declaration of war against Germany in response.  Due to this lack of expected action, the war received the nickname of “The Phoney War.”  Britain used this time to urgently prepare to defend herself from attack by air and sea.   The Phoney War ended with the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, beginning in the Spring of 1940.

The Land Girls is the nickname given to the women and girls who worked for the Women’s Land Army (WLA), and the two girls living and working on the Jones’ farm where Maude and Eula were evacuated were leading a typical life for its members.  Some facts from the Imperial War Musems’ website (iwm.org.uk):

·       Women were recruited from towns and cities.   By autumn 1941, more than 20,000 women had volunteered to serve in the WLA.  One third had lived in London or another large city.

·       Some Land Girls lived at the farms where they worked, others lived in hostels set up to house them.

·       A quarter of all Land Girls did dairy work.

·       Land Girls were employed as rat catchers.  Rats, as well as rabbits and moles were a threat to the food supply.

·       Land Girls were paid less than men for the same work, and initially there were no holidays, paid or unpaid, just a free travel pass after six months.  But conditions improved after 1943 which introduced one week’s holiday per year and a raise in the minimum wage.

·       The WLA had a specialist forestry branch called the Timber Corps.  Around 6,000 women worked as ‘Lumber Jills’.

·       Land Girls sometimes worked alongside POWs.  By 1943, there were almost 40,000 Italian prisoners of war working on British farms.  The general public was also encouraged to help out with farm work, especially at harvest time.  This was seen as a cheap way of taking a holiday in the countryside.  Special camps were set up to accommodate volunteers.