To mark Women’s History Month, the Farnham Herald remembers Monica Gudge, who worked as a Land Girl in Farnham and the surrounding area.

By 1945, the Women’s Land Army numbered 80,000, and one of them was Monica Gudge. On becoming a Land Girl, she was sent to Dial House hostel in Longdown Road, Farnham, with 60 others.

She was employed as a forewoman, responsible for assigning work to her gang, who mainly worked on arable farms. Depending on the season it included picking up potatoes, and lifting swedes and mangolds. In the cold of winter, picking cabbage and sprouts could be very unpleasant. They were expected to tackle any job that a man could do and took on hedging and ditching.

Other women like Madge Jackson, who with her husband, Henry, founded the Rural Life Centre, joined the Women’s Timber Corps.

After breakfast, Mrs Gudge’s team were driven to where they were needed in a lorry owned by the Surrey War Agricultural Executive Committee. If the job was close they sometimes used cycles.

Monica remembered working at was Lloyd George’s farm in Churt. Packed lunches were provided, but as these rarely included anything to drink, refreshment was often taken at a pub, like the Pride of the Valley in Churt.

Picking soft fruit and pruning fruit trees were other jobs they did. Once, Monica helped to thatch hayricks at West End Farm at Dockenfield. A less popular request was for six girls to act as beaters for a shoot at the farm. Monica said the girls did not appreciate this and frightened the birds before the guns were ready.

The Land Army continued until October 1949, but the numbers at Dial House soon dropped off. Monica was demobilised in February of that year.

Article and image reproduced with permission of the Rural Life Living Museum.