Land Girl - Winifred Hurler/Blundell
The Hurler family hailed from Peak Dale in Derbyshire and Winifred Hurler GTLR-ZJC was born on 24th April 1922. As a young woman she worked as an office clerk and was living in Withington, Manchester in the early 1940s.
Wanting to do her bit for the war effort, Win signed up to the Women’s Land Army on 20th July 1942. Initially she was posted at a farm in Todmorden which was run by an elderly widow. The poor woman used to talk to her dead husband over the kitchen door.
Win and another land girl slept up in the attic of the farmhouse. Unfortunately, some of the roof slates were missing and when the young girls woke up in the mornings, there was snow drifts on the end of the bed! The other girl was so unhappy she returned home to her mother. Not Win! She stayed saying that was where she was needed, so she had to put up with it.
Nevertheless, eventually Win came to Halsall to work for the Carr family at Barton House, Barton, near Halsall. James and Elizabeth Carr and their 3 children.
She moved into the Women’s Land Army Hostel on Summerwood Lane, Halsall ( the building that is now the Halsall Business Park, rather than living with the family at Barton House.
and on the subject of baggin …..
Win’s god-daughter, Sue Hulm remembers…
‘She’d tell me about cycling to work and would pass Harry Marshall working in the field with Lion, the Shire horse. Lion would see her and stop dead in the field waiting for her to give him one of her sandwiches’.
‘Win said they all got together for baggin but some days there would be bits of onion floating in the tea because the boiler had had a stew in it the day before’.
Win was ‘no nonsense’ but full of fun too, this being exemplified in the photo of a group of land girls posing for the camera in what they referred to as their ‘de-mob’ outfits, which consisted of a blouse. It was Win who suggested a photo of them in their blouses and briefs!
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It was while she was working at Barton House that she met William Blundell (Bill) GPH8-JNS. On 13th January 1948, Win left the Women’s Land Army and the couple were married early 1948; returning to her Derbyshire roots, the wedding was registered at Chapel en le Frith. Bill and Win then lived on New Street, Halsall and are both fondly remembered by a great many local residents to this day.
William Blundell died in 2005 and Winifred Blundell passed away in 2022 at the grand age of 100 years old.
Thank you very much to Sue Hulm for the photographs and anecdotes in relation to Win.
