Lifetime on the land a joy for Eileen

IN a world torn apart by war, it was a time of two loves for Land Girl Eileen Parish.

Since childhood she had cherished a dream of working on a farm with animals and was now happily absorbed into the life of Llanyrafon Farm.

One love led to another.

"I was working away when, across the Afon Llwyd, I saw a man from the neighbouring Tyn-y-Pwll Farm mowing with horses.

"He waved to me and I waved back.

"The wave was the beginning of me and Russell Lawrence falling in love and marrying.

"Despite the war's hardships I had found real happiness."

Real, but all too short.

Eight years after their marriage Russell died of undiagnosed diabetes.

Bereft, but with a determination to put her life back together, the young widow threw herself into her job with the Ministry of Agriculture in Newport.

Today, aged 92, she remains close to the land in her cottage in the rolling countryside where Monmouthshire meets Newport, studying farming magazines, attending to the affairs of her local church and remembering that even in the midst of war and hardship, true love can still be found.

Another war was raging when, on December 28, 1914, Eileen was born in Newport.

"My father was called up into the Army and saw terrible things in the trenches of the First World War.

"I was six when he died as a result of what had happened to him in that war.

"Without the main breadwinner, money was short for myself, mother and elder sister. Although my headmistress wanted me to go to university it was financially out of the question."

After working in secretarial jobs she passed the Civil Service entrance exams and, as World War Two broke out, took up a post with the Admiralty in Bath.

"It was a dull time in a city made dull by the war," Eileen recalls.

"My mother's sisters had all married farmers and the land was where I wanted to be.

"When I heard that a Women's Land Army had been formed I asked the Admiralty if I could be released and got a firm 'no'.

"Eventually they gave in and I went to an agricultural college in Somerset to learn to milk cows and drive tractors and all the things men would ordinarily have to do.

"About 20 of us were from all walks of life.

"Some had been hairdressers and beauty consultants and turned up with beautifully painted nails.

"Half of them didn't realise what they had volunteered for but it wasn't long before the nail varnish wore off and the hands became hardened through work.

"The hours were long and the food terrible and in short supply. One night the only thing left for us was bread, cocoa and mustard. We smeared mustard on the bread and as a result spent the night being sick.

"I was very fit in those days and remember carrying a two-hundredweight sack of grain up into the granary.

"Not something I should like to try now!"she laughs.

Her Admiralty pay had been £3 a week.

As a Land Army girl sent to work at Cwrt-y-Gollen Farm between Raglan and Usk, Eileen earned 18 shillings (90 pence) a week.

"Mind you it was all pocket money and I loved the work on a dairy farm and of course the food was much better.

"After six months I was sent to Llanyrafon farmed by Mrs Nancy Evans and her brother, Rhys. At this time the Cwmbran area was mostly open fields and farms.

"It was a happy time with lovely people. Mrs Evans was an enterprising lady who sold some of the milk to American soldiers at the Malpas camp.

"I made friends with Miss Shorland, a lady groom and we'd swap clothes which were hard to come by and drink tea or cocoa together on winter nights."

After leaving the Land Army at the end of the war Eileen took a job with the agriculture ministry in Fields Road Newport living in 'digs' in Woodland park Road while she and Russell waited for a suitable farm of their own to become vacant.

When Station Farm, Pontnewydd, came up, Eileen ensured a steady flow of cash by keeping her ministry job.

"We raised heifers until they had their first calves and sold them on as first-calvers.

"Then we took Pill Farm, Undy, which was a small place that Russell could manage after his diabetes had been diagnosed but too late.

"He died in 1965.

"I bought a little house in Devauden. It was sad coming home to an empty house but somehow you keep going.

"Looking back on my life my time at Llanyrafon Farm was special.

"I can see it as if it were only yesterday, the moment when I returned Russell's wave and fell in love."

STANDING in its present form since the 17th century but on earlier foundations Llanyrafon Farm is part of a shrinking stock of historical Gwent farm buildings.

Graham Lawrence, Eileen's cousin by marriage and a local historian who is keen to save the old farm says the cost would be likely to run to at least £1 million.

"The calm of centuries had settled on the old farmouse before Cwmbran was designated a new town in 1949" he said.

"It is sad to think that what has stood for four centuries might be demolished in only a couple of days."

Mrs Lawrence said: "The farm has so many memories. I hope something can be done to keep it much as it has been for hundreds of years."

Llanyrafon Farm is on a flood plain deemed unsuitable for further development which may help save it.

Conversion into a pub-restaurant or museum have been suggested.

----- Captions: CLOSE TO THE LAND: Eileen Lawrence of St Brides, was a Land Army girl in the Second World War and says she always wanted to waork on a fam - which is how she met her late husband Russell HISTORICAL: Llanyrafon Farm in the 1940s. Eileen's bedroom window is over the front door. NEAREST NEIGHBOURS: The Waite family at Llanyrafon Mill in the 1930s. HARD AT WORK: Eileen, pictured with her late husband Russell, enjoying work on the farm WARTIME ROMANCE: Eileen Lawrence with her late hussband Russell, who died eighty years after they married