Land Girls and leathering

12Jan12

Land Girls, some hi-jinks and possible consequences

No idea where this came from. It was found while digging around in snippets culled from the Internet, along with a sorority spanking story by PN Deadaux of all things.

Before we continue we had better explain that the term leathering is a mainly northern England expression for strapping, although the snippet below is from Norfolk. It may be something that was unearthed during research for the short story, Long Live the King.

Coming from the south, the first time DJ Black ever heard the term used in earnest was during an English lesson when we were discussing punishment after one girl told the class as part of her contribution that she had once been spanked for running away.

Another girl, who had recently arrived in our class from the north, said something like, “ee, if I had done that I would have got a leathering.”

It would also probably be wise to explain that Land Girls was the term for a quasi-military organisation of women drafted to work on the land during the Second World War.

Often very young girls from the city found themselves hundreds of miles from home working the land and experiencing a whole new way of life. Often on very small holdings, one or two girls would live with the family and become ‘like daughters to the farmer and his wife.’

It can only be imagined what that sometimes entailed, or so one might think. What then of this snippet.

‘I had a surprise insight into some family history while visiting my aunt who still lives on the farm where she and my mother were brought up. I had asked how my grandmother and grandfather had come to meet, since I knew her family had been Londoners and his farm, the one I was visiting, was in Norfolk. I was especially interested as I had never known my grandfather, him being apparently some 27 years older than my Nan.

I was told that my grandmother had been a Land Girl during the war and had been posted there.

“I have no idea what she saw in him,” I was told. “Apparently he leathered her bare backside on more than one occasion when she first worked for him.”

Asking more, I found out that that my grandmother had something of a rebellious streak back in the day. Apparently she once took the tractor without permission and it ended up in the village duck pond. It took three days to get it out on account of it being the only tractor in the area.

Being less innocent than my aunt apparently was, I tried to extract some more details about the punishments my grandmother had got and how, what must have been some sort of torrid Mills & Boon type romance, had got started. Sadly I did not learn much more.

However, I did say something like, “I suppose that’s just how it was back in the day,” and my aunt goes, “don’t you believe it. When your mother and I were young, your grandfather blistered our bottoms quite often enough no matter how big we were.”

I did learn that there were three other Land Girls on the farm and although my aunt didn’t know for sure if they got ‘a leathering,’ she did say that her father didn’t play favourites, which I took to mean that it was likely.’

By the way the pictures above (apart from the last one) are of real land girls who did a sterling job and there is no reason to assume that they were in anyway deficient in their professionalism or behaviour. Their use here is just for illustative reasons.

Filed under: articles, history, military, real life, workplace   |  5 Comments
Tags: 1940s, adult daughters, Land Girls, leathering, punishment, spanking, spanking adult daughters, strapping