How did people respond to you?

Irene: The War-Ag would send us out to do jobs, farms would apply to have us for a few days and then feed us. Some were really mean and you wouldn't even get a cup of tea, but others were lovely and couldn't do enough for you. Then it was like having Christmas dinner! One family though had lovely food and all sat opposite us while we had the awful stuff. My husband-to-be used to put the meat that was like gristle in a handkerchief and the dogs would chase him!

The farms up near Phyllis' were nice, the hill farmers were the nicest. The lower ones didn't want you in their homes. I remember Ifor Thomas and his family though, he would always pick you up in his car and then you had to dine with them and they had a maid!

Elsie: I remember working on a feeding drum and the bloke running it kept telling off the regular workman for burning the chuff-it was a hot week-and there were three of us up on the top working for a week and he lit it again and the whole lot went up. They had to untie the horses...but of course the Land Girls were blamed. We were out in Brecon at night and heard people blaming us but I put them right and told them it was the workman and that I had been there so I knew!

The local girls could do nothing wrong but if we so much as looked at a guy it was assumed something was going on.

I remember coming home one Friday night after work and being given my wages and told my friend and I were going to London on a course about tractors. After the travel we had no money so couldn't buy any food. We were stuck in Reading for ages because of heavy raids and only got to London at 10pm and it was an awful hostel. The warden said we couldn't have anything so we had no food for almost 24hrs. My friend found us some breakfast the next morning and then we had to rush off for this course with no directions.

We had to go round all the people from the Army, Navy and Air Force looking for where we were supposed to be and then study for two weeks and then we had an exam which we hadn't been told about. I hated setting contact breaker points and knew that would be on the exam, I sat on the upturned bucket and cried and we both only just scraped through!

How did you find it when you started?

Irene: It was so different coming from a town...I grew up in London and had only been to a farm once with the Country Cottage fund for town children to see a farm in Dorset.

Elsie:: I got to Glasbury in March but it was really hot. A girl met us but the trucks were all busy and we had to walk and it was a mile and a half away! I hated the boots we had to wear so walked without them, the girls used to wear them in for me when working.

I remember the Fuller greengrocers in Llandrindod and Mrs Fuller thought it was awful we had to carry the big sacks on our backs. She called us 'you gals' and in the summer would have a glass of lemonade ready for me and hot chocolate in the winter.

Elsie:: I was the first girl to drive a combine here... and I'll never forget there was one man who shook his head and said 'it isn't right a little girl like that...'!

I'll tell you what was heavy work...we had to heave 100 weight bags of slag and lime to put in the machine. And the loose lime and hot lime we had to shovel off the back of the tractor fell on my friend Edna's heel...

Irene: I remember arriving at Middlesex and being told I was looking after a horse. I didn't know one end of a horse from another!

People would think we were fast if we wore a sun top working out in the fields to get a tan. I cut my dungarees too! But in the winter it was so cold that my uncle who was a porter at Covent Garden gave me some long johns to go under the dungarees. I sewed up the fly and there they would be hanging in the laundry room at the Castle where the girls would wait to meet their friends!

Elsie:: All we did was roll up our sleeves and dungarees! I remember going home and the trains would be so packed we would have to use the cattle truck and we were given nylons by some men in there once!

Irene: My first pair of nylons were those glass nylons. I was lodging with a family and the son bought me a pair. I brought them to the castle and when there was a fire we had to get out and were told to bring what we needed and all I grabbed were these nylons. Not my purse or money!

Elsie:: We used to have fire practice and there was a barrel pump which two girls would stand either side of to pump the water. My maiden surname was Bird and my friend's was Pie and we were told 'Bird and Pie on hose' and we didn't take it too seriously, and chatted away. When the water came on it was so powerful we let go and it went all over the place! We mowed down all the daffodils!

I remember once the Minister for Ag was coming and his name was Hudson. One little girl had to shout 'three cheers for Mr Husdon' when he came but when she saw him her mind went blank and she couldn't remember his name and all I could think of was Hudson's Soap so I told her soap and she shouted out '3 cheers for Mr Soap'! And then we had to run for the train to Brecon...

Irene: We used to get a lift in the trucks...

Elsie: The American's would take us the last bit of the way in their jeeps but by then your hair would be all over the place, we wore so many clips then and they would all come out.

We were supposed to be in at 10pm or 11pm on a Saturday unless we got special permission. We had to get permission to go to the dances too, they had marvellous dances at the army hospital. We used to get people to leave the windows open for us so we could sneak in. We got caught once and had to stay in for the whole weekend!

Irene: I remember being stuck in for 6 weeks in the snow of 1947. We had one bucket of water between two of us for washing each day and had to decide whether to let one girl have a decent wash or have half each! Eventually we tunnelled out...

Did you meet interesting people?

Irene: We did meet alls sorts of people from all over the country too. We were working with prisoners of war too. I found the Italians really lazy but the Germans were wonderful workers, and I say that having been bombed out by them in London twice.

Two of our girls married Germans, Gladys went to Yorkshire with her husband who was German.

Elsie: Do you remember Heinz, Phyllis? His father was an old Prussian. He had a boy of 6 and was in the Navy and was very nice to work with. He used to ask me for English words to learn overnight.

There was an old German miner too who worked with Tudor [Elsie's husband] and he thought so much of Tudor he would ride over on his bike from Presteigne for work, and he kept in touch for years. Another one named his baby girl after me!

My father-in-law was a dentist and one day Tudor had lost George and went looking for him. He found him in the barn trying to pull his own tooth out so Tudor took him to his step-father and they were so grateful his mother sent us a thank you letter.

The Italians were good singers though. There was one famous tenor who would do arias for us on request! And they always had great food...

Irene: I used to save up my rations of butter and sugar and tea and send them to my mother in London.

Phyllis: Do you remember having beetroot sandwiches?!

Elsie: I've had no sugar in my tea since the war, none in my family have [both Irene and Phyllis agree].

What happened next for you?

Elsie: Tudor, Edna and I were working up on the common and no-one told us the war was over! We worked all day and came down to find people had been celebrating all the time. I had been teaching Tudor and his brother to dance in the house and when we were out dancing that night Tudor got too embarrassed, he thought everyone was looking at him so I danced with Joe instead! I got married to Tudor and stayed in the Land Army.

Phyllis: I was in Brecon that day-we thought they wouldn't want us anymore but they did, they said we had to keep going!

Irene:I was in Middlesex when the war ended and came up here in 1945. I stayed until the hostel closed and I went to Devon for 2 months but it was awful so I went home. I had met my future husband Selwyn (Phyllis' brother) at a dance at St Peters and we wrote to each other but were just friends. He was in Hong Kong and got sent to a military hospital in Uxbridge near Middlesex and I visited him there. We were married 58 years ago today. We moved here in 1954 after living in Germany for a couple of years.

Interview with Elsie Gwynne, Irene Gwynne and Phyllis Davies.