Mary Haines in the far left back row at Rest Break House in North Wales

The End of the War...

Nearing the end of the war, Mary moved to Rest Break House in North Wales. This home allowed injured, overworked and exhausted Land Girls to recover. Mary was sent there, along with a dozen other women to rest as she had been suffering badly from back pains as a result of the hard work on the farm in Suffolk. 

"One girl had had her body crushed and had lost a lung when a lorry crashed into the vehicle in which she and several other Land Girls were being taken out for field work."

And it was around this time that her friend Bill was also reported missing after a bombing raid.

"Oddly enough I took it quite calmly. With his brother and others I had known, I had allowed myself to hope desperately, to no avail, but now, with Bill, I had only a vague feeling of numbness when I learned that he had not returned from a bombing raid."

"Each aeroplane that flew overhead left me cold and shivering. Missing… Missing… I refused to hope, much better to believe him dead."

Luckily Bill didn’t die but shortly before the war ended, Mary was was told that her fiancée had been killed in action. Leonard died just a month before the Armistice. His mother came to tell her of the bad news. 

After the war ended, Mary returned to her family in London but the effect of wartime had taken its toll, and it wasn't until months later that Mary realised just how much the events of the past three and a half years had affected her. Her mother decided to take her to see the doctor.

But Mary wasn't the only person in her family to have been affected by the past four years of conflict. Her aunt had recently married a man who had been fighting in France. She remembers how he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and had to sleep in a separate room to avoid kicking and punching his wife in his sleep. 

​Writing