Mary Muldoon
Birstall
Served: 1942 - 1946; Cumberland
Mary was born and raised in Birstall. Her first job was at a mill in Birstall where she became a carpet weaver. When the war started the mill closed. She moved to another mill but there were so few young people she resolved to do something else. Hardly ever having spent time outside Birstall she bravely signed up for the WLA.
On 30 March 1942 she reported to a hostel in Lazenby in the Lake District. From there she was ferried to various farms to do any jobs they were asked to do. She was soon on the move and was billeted in a large house in Scalesby some eight miles from Carlisle. From there she was sent on a course to Hull to learn how to operate an excavator. The idea was that she would clear and dig ditches.
She returned to the Lake District, but this time to Brough near the Solway Firth. They were somewhat isolated so she asked the boss if she could use a bicycle to go to church. He refused her. Mary showed her growing confidence and sense of independence by requesting a return to Scalesby. She returned to the farmwork with a new energy. She enjoyed all her jobs, the only things she couldn't get on with were the geese! She remembers in the hard winter of 1945 she had a three week holiday but was more than happy to return to the farm. She was demobbed on 1 March 1946.
She returned to the original mill as a weaver, and spent her working life in various textile jobs. She looks back with satisfaction about her work, but when she talks about her four years as a Land Girl, she smiles and there is glint in her eye. |
