Feeding the country during the Second World War

By John Cheves

Rhoda in her Land Army outfit, with her warm winter coat

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Rhoda in her Land Army outfit

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Rhoda's letter of commendation for her Land Army work from Queen Elizabeth II

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Rhoda's letter of commendation for her Land Army work from Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Rhoda's Land Army badge commemorating her wartime work

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

My husband was away during the war, he was a bomb disposal officer. I wanted go into the services and he suggested joining the Land Army. The only place I could join it was in Huntingtonshire. I went to live in Rampton near Cambridge and worked on the land. I learned to drive a five hundred weight van, taking the fruit and vegetables to the market in Cambridge, on a Saturday. We would stack the produce as high as we could and we'd be sold out by 11.30 and have taken £70.

I loved all the work, I think you're nearer to God in the garden than anywhere else on earth. I got to know everybody in the village and would go with my landlady every Friday night to visit her sister for a cup of tea.

After the war my husband came to live with me in Rampton, but then his old boss asked him to come to London to be his private secretary, so we moved to Harrow and then Egham before settling in Croydon.