Joan Thwaites
Cleckheaton
Served: 1941 - 1948; Boughton, Northants, Pytchley, Kettering and Newmarket
Joan lives in the house in Cleckheaton where she was born 84 years ago. To say she has lived her life by her own lights is something of an understatement. Without telling her parents she applied to join the Land Army. The letter telling her she was too young at 17 let the cat out of the bag. Unabashed she applied again when she was 18 and was accepted. She had always been an animal lover so her ambition was to work with farm livestock.
In 1941 the travel warrant told her to report to a farm in Chapel Brompton, Northamptonshire. The farm, though organised and run by the YWCA, was actually owned by the Earl and Countess Spencer, the grandparents of Diana, Princess of Wales. The farm housed 36 young women, a few from Bradford but mainly from the London area.
Her early memories are of picking potatoes in all sorts of weather. They often worked 12 hours a day and, yes, every night for dinner a baked potato featured in their meal. They never saw a green vegetable. Life was hard, and during the day there was little to eat or drink.
Then, a stroke of luck, she was posted to Bunker Hill Farm to work for Mr Blackett. For two years she was in her element, milking and looking after a herd of Ayrshire cattle. Her hours were 7.30am – 6.30pm in the winter, summer was 6.30am until they finished, often as dusk approached. During the harvest it was not unusual to put in a 14 hour day. Her reward was a mighty 25 shillings per week. £1 was deducted for her keep!
After a short stay at Rectory Farm she landed her dream job at Pytchley Lodge Farm working for Mr John Eady. Her reputation as a herdsman went ahead of her and once again she was in sole charge of the dairy herd. She was offered a newly born bull calf. She raised it to maturity, walking it a mile every afternoon. It was a day of mixed emotions for Joan when it went for the top price at Banbury Market Sales. After four years she left Pytchley with John Eady’s words, 'come back anytime' ringing in her ears. She did indeed return for several holidays.
She looked after the Jersey herd for Lord and Lady Delamere, near Newmarket and in 1948 she returned to Cleckheaton. She had turned down the offer of a job at Regent’s Park Zoo and also one near Paris offered by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture. After a spell working as a matron at a boarding school in Harrogate, starting a library in the local Co-op and working in a fabric shop, in 1951 she was appointed matron of Turnsteads, a Cleckheaton nursing home for women. She retired from this post 27 years later. She achieved legendary staus among the many women she cared for and is a well known figure in the life of Cleckheaton. Throughout her life she has followed her own star, and today she is still the indomitable figure she was when she first joined the Land Girls.
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