Published in The Land Girl, No3, Vol 1, June 1940 (p4-5)
Written by the first batch of Land Girl trainees at Northamptonshire Institute of Agriculture
Transcribed by Stuart Antrobus.
We get up at six in the morning,
We all look so haggard and worn.
The cocks are all crowing – we’re yawning,
We wish that we’d never been born.
The cow she won’t give any milk,
The calf it will go the wrong way.
The unit’s in such a mess up –
Oh! take the dam thing away.
We set off with haste – no one lingers,
To cut off the sugar beet tops.
We hack off the tops – of our own fingers –
And mingle the gore with the crops.
They’re treating the poor sheep for foot-rot,
They’re giving them Wellingtons too;
But if only they’d look at our blisters
They wouldn’t know whose feet to do.
Ooh aye and ye bonnie wee lassies,
Just one thing I’ve learnt on the farm –
It’s more than our miserable life’s worth
To let an old cow come to harm.