After learning the manual labour of sowing, hoeing, ploughing potatoes and harvesting crops, some Land Girls learnt how to become ‘mechanised’ and drive a tractor. Most Land Girls knew nothing about driving, let alone how to drive a Fordson tractor with a powerful engine.
With driving a tractor came the responsibility of looking after it, especially in the winter. Joan Snelling remembers how in the winter, she had to
to drain the radiator [each night] before covering it up with a large tarpaulin.
Joan Mary Snelling, A Land Girl’s War (Ipswich: Old Pond Publishing Ltd, 2004), pp. 70-71
When forgetting to do this just once, the cylinders became cracked, much to the despair of the farmer who had to find replacements. Land Girls needed to take seriously the responsibility of maintaining expensive farming equipment.
