Land Army Memories.

Hastings Road c1955
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The white weatherboarded house was the farmhouse of the farm where my mother, Joyce Clark, worked along with another 3 girls in the Land Army during the Second World War.  It was called Cogger's Farm.  She was there whilst the Battle of Britain was fought overhead.  They grew hops, wheat, barley, oats and enough vegetables to supply the local school.  The oast houses behind the house belonged to the farm.  The hops were picked each year by families from the east end of London who came down and made a holiday of it.  They slept in stone outhouses in the farmyard on straw pallets.  My mother was billeted with Miss Parrot (along with another Land Girl called Lot) in a house off the photo on the first road to the left (shown as a weatherboarded house on the right of photo L323039).  Every Sunday Lot and my mother had to sing hymns around the piano and if they went to a Saturday night dance they had to be in by 10pm!