Land Girl - Gertrude Howis (1921-2005)
Gertrude Howis GB4W-JGC was born in the Chadderton area of Lancashire on 25th November 1921. Her parents were local lass Amy Preston and John William Howis, who was originally from Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
John’s father, also John was a coal miner. In 1901 there were 2 sons and a daughter in the family. By 1911 the family had moved to the Lancashire coal mining area and lived in Failsworth near Manchester.
Amy Preston was born in 1900 in Failsworth. Her father, Thomas Preston was a Guard on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway.
Amy and John’s marriage was registered in Oldham in 1921 and Getrude was born later that year.
As a young woman, Gertrude worked as an artificial silk winder in Chadderton. This entailed winding silk onto spools or bobbins prior to the silk being twisted. Artificial silk is a filament made from the cellulose in wood. Other names for artificial silk are rayon and viscose. Having been twisted together, the artificial silks were woven into clothes, war time parachutes or sanitaryware for hospitals for instance. In Britain artificial silk was mass produced during the 1920s in Coventry and a second factory opened in Preston, Lancashire on the eve of WW2 in 1939.
In the winter of 1942, Gertrude, responding to pleas of help from the Women’s Land Army advertisements, decided to do her bit for King and country and apply.
Her application was successful and she found out she was to be billeted with recently widowed Peter Balmer, farmer at Chestnut Farm, Halsall, Lancashire. Originally from Aughton, Peter Balmer had worked as a teamsman for his father, Charles at Birches Brow, Aughton. He married Margaret Rigby and eventually he ran his own farm in Halsall. In 1939 the household numbered eleven as they had their children and son-in-law, Harold Dean living with them at that time.
So leaving the factory behind, Gertrude embarked on her Land Girl career on 11th February 1942. Despite there being a hostel on Summerwood Lane to accommodate the Land Girls, Gertrude lived with the Balmer family at Chestnut Farm.
It wasn’t too long before Gertrude caught the eye of farmer’s son, John Balmer. They were married in the summer of 1944 and Gertrude resigned from the WLA on 19th October the same year. Gertrude and John went on to have two sons and ran the Ship Inn in Haskayne for a while, settling in Sumner Avenue, Haskayne after that.
John died in 1986 and Gertrude passed away in 2005.
