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Eirian
Vaughan Jones, The Lady Cow Man
At
the farm ,Dole, Lampeter in Carmathenshire, Wales
Eirian
Vaughan Jones
Great-grandma,
Mrs Eirian Lewis was the first woman to wear breeches in Carmarthenshire.
In fact she was the first girl in the county to become a land girl or as she says she was called
the Lady Cow Man. As a shy and
inexperienced schoolgirl she left home to help to farm, during the First World
War, in Lampeter. She was so
homesick that after a few weeks she wrote home to say that she had not cried for
a whole week.
Her
recollections are well worth recording. She
went to Carmarthen to collect her uniform which was composed of breeches, a
smock and a straw hat. On being asked what size shoes she took she said size 3. She was told that they the smallest they had in stock were
size 6 and these she wore and found to be most comfortable with 2 pairs of
socks. In 1917 ladies did not wear
trousers.
She
looked after 14 pedigree cows, dairy shorthorns, and became quite proficient at
milking. Her favourite was Daisy
who gave her more milk than to the dairymaid who apparently would strike the cow
with the milking stool. Milking
machinery had not yet arrived. The
story great grandma loves to tell is that of the day she went to market.
The gambo that took her was early and so young Eirian stopped to visit
friends. She tied the calf that she
was to sell to a lamppost and climbed the steps to visit the terraced house, in
question and did the same to visit another friend.
Her fame followed her for a number of years as the young lady who tied
the calf to the lamppost. At the entrance to the market the calf, a pedigree,
was much admired by the farmers one saying what fine shoulders it had and others
remarking on its head or its legs. Alone
in the centre of the ring the auctioneer called “going -going
gone for £6 and a voice from the audience of farmers - she was the only woman
and wearing her breeches - was heard to shout “and is the young lady going
with it” much to the embarrassment of the shy 17 year old wearing her new Land
Girl’s uniform for the very first
time.
She
work was hard and the one-eyed farm overseer, the head cowman, was a very hard
taskmaster. In fact he would be
considered chauvinistic today. The
turnips had to be heeled in by hand. She
worked so hard that her hands bled. She
groomed the horses and rode bare back to round up the cows.
Stables and cowsheds had to be cleaned out.
An inspector called unexpectedly and commented that her cowsheds were
cleaner than many dwelling places. The
job she hated most was cleaning the chicken sheds as they were infested by fleas
and she was frightened to go back to her room after this task in case this
became flea infested. She later
found that chicken fleas did not infest human beings.
There were four pigs to look after and she cleaned the pigsty.
She groomed the horses
She
was made to take a man’s size wheel barrow up planks on to the huge “dolmen
“of manure and wept when the wheel barrow tipped over and she had to do it all
again using a man’s shovel.
What
she did enjoy was harvest time when she joined the women in the fields and drank
gallons of tea with them from a communal bowl.
Welsh was always spoken. She
had difficulty starting the chaffing machine with a cord but after many goes she
got it going. She was no good at
ploughing as she could not drive a straight line though harrowing was easy. Her
jobs seemed very numerous for a young girl.
After 6 months she received the wage of £6.
She
found the people of Lampeter very kind and would keep sweets for her behind the
scenes or a new book. Farming she considered was much more difficult than people
thought and one had to be very adept to plough or do other farming tasks.
She succumbed to acute rheumatism after this war effort and still today
believes her rheumaticky hands were caused by her duties.
This
account was taken when Eirian was an alert 97 year old and in fact it is
difficult to picture her as a teenager working under such conditions on a farm
such as she did. Her independent
nature did not leave her and she was just as determined till the day she died.
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