They were Vicky Smith and Mary Dalton who had done a month's training at South Mimms and were now to be based at The Arches in Felden.

With about 36 other Land Girls they spent the next few years in a cluster of Nissen huts waiting for trucks to take them to farms around the locality.

They remember back breaking potato picking, hoeing, threshing barley, fruit picking at Verulam, St Albans.

Vicky is now Vicky Tovey, 79, of Mountfield Road, and Mary is Mary Fuller, 78, now of Chapel Street, both in Hemel Hempstead.

They were not wartime heroines, but joined from 1947 to 1950 to do vital work.

The two have been best friends ever since - 61 years - and still see each other twice a week.

Both married local Hemel Hempstead lads and both are now widows.

But there has been such a lot of laughter over those years, they say.

Only one or two pictures have survived, but their memories are fresh.

Vicky recalls her childhood home had no electricity and no bathroom.

But at The Arches there was a bath, hot water and electric lights - "all mod cons" she says.

With a company of all girls there was laughter and a great social life.

They met their husbands (who were friends) walking on Roughdown Common or in local cafes - not pubs.

"Women did not go into pubs alone - we would have been loose women", but they went to dances at the TA Hall which was opposite The Bury near the old fire station.

"There were times when we got so cold, but we were all well, very fit and healthy," said Mary.

Later Mary trained as a nurse and was a community midwife in the Hemel Hempstead area from 1969 to 1995.

Vicky is still keen on her gardening, growing vegetables potatoes and carrots. They would be glad to hear from any former colleagues.

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