Voices from History: Essex Land Girls E-Book

Dee Gordon

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 245

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

As much as 70 per cent of Essex is agricultural, and given its proximity to the capital it is not surprising that so many members of the Women's Land Army found themselves on Essex farms and in Essex fields during the two world wars, doing their bit to make sure that Britain did not starve. This book not only includes interviews with some of the last surviving land 'girls' but also contains a wealth of material unearthed in diaries, letters and in the stories handed down from one generation to the next about women in Essex who were, literally, wearing the trousers. They were not all local girls, and many arrived from the cities never having seen a cow or a tractor before. But the British spirit persevered, and the wit and camaraderie that served us so well during those tumultuous years shines through in every story.

Leseprobe

Acknowledgements

The following gave freely of their time and/or research to assist in putting this book together: Tony Millatt at Mersea Museum; Wendy Hibbitt at the Writtle Archive; Richard Gregory at www.essexmediaworkshop.co.uk; Martin Anstell (Sound Archivist) and everyone at the Essex Record Office; Cherish Watton at www.womenslandarmy.co.uk; Andrew Phillips at ‘Colchester Recalled’; Jennifer Brown at Braintree Museum; Linda Rhodes, local studies librarian at Valence House, Dagenham; Gemma Pardue at Suffolk Record Office; researcher John Street; John Threadgold at Miller’s Farm; writer and historian Stuart Antrobus; Patrick Henstock at the Grosvenor Hotel in Westcliff-on-Sea; Delphine Milligan; Christine Barton at Felixstowe Library; Terrence Carter at the Loughton & District Historical Society; Brenda Miller and David Devine, along with staff at Harlow Museum; Simon Offord and Richard Hughes at the Imperial War Museum; author and historian Jacqueline Cooper; Simon Wallace at Southend Forum; Gary Congram at www.hullbridgevillage.com; the search room staff at Suffolk Record Office; Judith Adams at Epping Forest Friends; author Joan Mant and her daughter, Louisa; Lynda Burrows, Tom King and Lauren Oldershaw at the (Southend) Echo; Janet Stables; Chris Hebden; Roger Dorking; Ray Franklin; local history recorder Roger Kennell; author Michael Foley; Coggeshall historian Stanley Haines; Councillor Lady Newton; Megan Spencer at the Tiptree Jam Museum; Joanne Smith at Southampton City Council; Ken Porter at the Basildon Borough Heritage Group; Pauline Hockley at Friends of Harlow Museum; Catherine and the late Peter Risbey; Nick Sign at the Suffolk Local History Council; Karen De Rosa at the Women’s Farm & Garden Association; and Clive McPherson at the Combined Military Services Museum.

Then there were the families of some of the Land Girls featured: Sir David Amess and Angela Burns; Jan Lane; Tina and Brian Woodham; Linda Medcalf; Pauline Taylor; Barbara and Ray Sinclair; Wendy Bennett; Alan Theobald; Anne O’Callaghan and Marion Dowling; Rosemary Pepper; Janet Ouchterlonie; and Margaret and Edmund King. I couldn’t have done it without them! Additional assistance was provided by Dave Bullock (see flickr.com), Matthew Beckett at ‘England’s Lost Country Houses’, and Bertie Dunlop when it came to sourcing photographs. Finally, and most importantly, thanks to those Land Girls who were able to talk to me, or whose oral histories are preserved throughout the county (these Land Girls appear in bold throughout the text and are included in a separate listing at the end of the book).

Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

One

The Start of it All

Two

The First World War in Essex

Three

The Second World War in Essex

Four

The Working Day

Five

Not All Work

Six

Post-War

Select Bibliography

Copyright

Introduction

There have been a number of books about Land Girls over the years, but none that have focused on their experiences in Essex. In both of the world wars there have been Land Girls working in the fields and farms of Essex, contributing to women’s history and the history of wartime agriculture, as well as Essex local history and twentieth-century social history. This is their story, told where possible in their own words, although the First World War stories are heavily reliant on reportage, for obvious reasons.

Once regarded as the ‘Cinderellas of the Soil’, 2014 finally brought recognition in the form of a permanent tribute to the Women’s Land Army (WLA) and Timber Corps at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire – a bronze sculpture of a Land Girl and a Lumber Jill (a member of the Timber Corps) linking arms, by sculptor Denise Dutton.

During both wars it has been up to volunteers to feed the war effort and the nation, and such recognition, spearheaded by the Staffordshire branch of the Women’s Food & Farming Union, was long overdue. While Staffordshire has taken the lead, the author’s research has revealed the depth of commitment in that oft-maligned county of Essex, and what follows is recognition of that commitment and contribution. Gordon Brown’s officials may have sent out certificates of gratitude in 2008, and medals may have been available since 2007 (on request) but, for too many, this was too late.

It was a delight to meet surviving members of the WLA, and listen to their vivid memories (relating to the Second World War) of experiences enjoyed by the vast majority, in spite of the backdrop of war. A big thank you to them all – and to those in the First World War whose contribution was similarly valid, but who never knew how they were, with hindsight, appreciated. The First World War experiences of Land Girls in Essex, at the centenary of their service, form a shorter part of this book, but this is only because many of their experiences and stories, left unrecorded in an age before social media, have sadly been lost.

Many members of the WLA from Essex never actually set foot in their home county during the wars, ending up in Scotland, Wales, the West Country and all parts of the UK. However, the emphasis throughout this book is on the girls and women who worked in Essex, rather than those from Essex. Although many Essex Land Girls had their roots in Essex, many others came from urban areas, in particular the East End of London, and their stories are even more fascinating – for these were young women who had no experience of a rural life. Many had not been on a train, seen the sea, or a cow, nor even had a garden.

Hopefully readers will enjoy this book as much as the author enjoyed researching and writing it.

One

The Start of it All

Saving the Country from Starvation: A New Kind of Army

The importance of home-grown food was brought into focus by the blockade of our ports by the enemy in 1915. Up until then, half of Britain’s food had been imported and, at one stage, there was just three weeks’ supply of food remaining in the country. Added to that, the conscription of able-bodied men during the First World War meant that the farming community was losing its workforce, so women began to replace men in the fields in large numbers.

There were already 100,000 women working on the land at the outbreak of war but, in spite of the volunteers working the land as part of the Women’s National Land Service Corps (WNLSC) from 1916, there was still a shortfall. The result was a new government department for food production, with a women’s branch established to recruit civilians who would form a mobile labour force.

At that stage, women did not have any political power, but regardless, they very soon began joining the newly formed women’s forces – army, air force and navy – in their thousands. Even by the end of the war, only a few million women over 30 were able to vote in the UK. But, to paraphrase Mrs Pankhurst, what use was a vote if there was no country to vote in? (Suffragette prisoners had been released in 1914 to aid the war effort.)

However, the role of women was beginning to change and Lady Denman – who was the first chairman of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, founded in 1917 – became honorary assistant director of the women’s branch of the Food Production Department of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was set up by the Food Production Department, headed by the seriously wealthy and philanthropic Lady Denman, who was already the chairman of the Women’s Institute subcommittee of the Agricultural Organisation Society. By the end of the war, the WLA had 23,000 members nationally, and Lady Denman was proud to sport its uniform.

War Agricultural Committees were formed in each county to boost food production, with famine looming due to a failed harvest and the dearth of imports. Demonstrations to show farmers how capable women could be as farm workers were encouraged, but resources were stretched and traditional committee bureaucracy ruled. While some areas of agricultural training did not encourage women with open arms, driving tractors was new to both men and women, and the WLA helped pioneer a mechanised revolution at a time when the availability of traditional horsepower was so limited.

Recruitment

National appeals were launched for female land workers, appealing to their patriotic nature to ‘free’ men for the fighting or to ‘keep the country in food’ rather than to the nonexistent glamour of the work, which involved feeding pigs and working on muddy farms, often encumbered by flowing skirts. Trousers were becoming more common, although still frowned upon, and the WLA uniform was yet to evolve. Poke bonnets were popular to avoid a suntan, which was regarded as very working class. Corsets were, incidentally, often abandoned due to the tendency of the steel bones to rust, thanks in part to the rain but also to the inevitable unladylike perspiration.

The first recruits were offered agricultural, timber-cutting or forage (animal feed) work, with the Women’s Forestry Corps and Women’s Forage Corps pre-dating the setting up of the WLA. Former members of the WNLSC (Women’s National Land Service Corps) were recruited as WLA instructors and group leaders, bearing in mind that they had originally been recruited in response to appeals for ‘educated women’, suggesting something rather more elitist than the WLA. By September 1917, there were 6,000 members of the WLA countrywide, with another 10,000 joining during the next year and a further 7,000 over the next twelve months. The appeal to patriotism and to women’s right to serve would seem to have worked.

There was prejudice against those women who did join the WLA. Their paltry (by comparison with men) wage of some 18s a week – less their board and lodging which could be as much as 15s a week – was still more than farmers were paying pensioners and schoolboys in lieu of farm workers. Husbands were not used to their wives being more than housewives and cooks. However, for those who had been in domestic service, the WLA was a step up in the world in spite of the long hours and hard work.

While not subject to military discipline, there were strict rules. They could not leave the WLA without special permission once they had signed up; they could be punished with hard labour for minor offences such as absenteeism, and were subject to a rigorous ticking off from the WLA’s middle- and upper-class officials for speaking out of turn. Although many women had opted to enter munition factories during the First World War, there were many thousands who registered as willing to take on farm work.

One Happy Family

The Landswoman, published from January 1918, was intended for all members of the WLA, partly as a boost for morale and partly to lessen feelings of isolation for those girls in remote areas. Apart from keeping the girls up to date, there was advice, gossip, and practical articles on gardening and cooking, as well as such pertinent subjects as thatching, beekeeping, making a dung heap, or ‘how to cure bee stings’. There was also regular input from the Women’s Institutes. This extract from the first issue illustrates the ethos:

Dear Girls

The object of this Magazine … is to bind you all together into one big family – a very happy family indeed; and I want you to take me on as a friend, and to write to me, every one of you, and tell me all about yourselves and your doings. Also, I am going to be a really useful friend, and I will suggest several ways in which I may be able to help you.

The Shopping Club [Anything the girls wanted and couldn’t get, contact the editor].

The Sewing Club [For advice regarding needlework, especially alterations].

The Correspondence Club [For penfriends or how to contact ‘your boy’ in France or in hospital somewhere].

Employment for Winter Evenings [Suggestions for ‘little clubs’ including amateur theatricals].

Cover of The Landswoman, January 1918. (Courtesy of Stuart Antrobus and www.womenslandarmy.co.uk)

The Knitting Club [Khaki wool offered at 5s per lb].

Notes and Queries Column [Any questions regarding farm work].

Competitions [Essays mainly, the first being ‘How to Cure Chilblains’, with five prizes of 1s each on offer].

Finally, I know just how lonely and how dull it is during these long winter evenings, miles away from everywhere, and I want you to understand and to feel that there is someone here in London at Headquarters, who is waiting to hear all about it, and who really means to help. Don’t forget! I shall expect lots and lots of letters, and by return of post. Your friend, THE EDITOR

The Uniform

There were plenty of advertisements in The Landswoman for suitable clothing – apart from adding to your uniform at Harrods and Harvey Nichols in London, you could send off 20s (carriage paid), for ‘field boots’ with ‘high uppers’, which were watertight and made of extra stout leather of ‘magnificent quality of hide’ from Ernest Draper & Co.’s ‘All British’ works in Northampton.

The basic uniform was free, and practical rather than stylish, incorporating a long, rubberised waterproof jacket and wide-brimmed sou’wester style hat, as well as those heavy duty boots. The Board of Agriculture advised a skirt ‘fourteen inches from the ground’, which was a relief to one anonymous poet in an issue of The Landswoman, who wrote that:

All can see that to work in a skirt

Is to gather up masses of dirt …

Not to mention that glimpses of hardworking ankles during the early part of the twentieth century were regarded as shocking. However, Land Army workers soon adopted the more practical option of breeches, which also gave the girls a sense of belonging and formality. Green armlets were added to the uniform of any WLA girl who had served thirty days or more during the war, with a certificate in appreciation of their work ‘truly serving’ their country, on a par with ‘the man who is fighting in the trenches’.

A Slow Acceptance

As more foods became restricted or unavailable and rationing kicked in, the role of the WLA became more important and widely recognised. These were girls out in all weathers, working long hours, cultivating crops – especially root crops with their high calorific value for humans and animals – and providing fodder for huge numbers of war horses.

Grassland was brought back into cultivation, and the government could step in to sort out badly run farms. Approaching 2 million acres of grassland were ploughed in order to grow wheat in one year alone (1917–18), and literally millions of tons of hay were made, mostly by hand, during the course of the war.

The WLA was disbanded in November 1919, as shipping food to Britain was once again re-established. The early proponents were awarded ‘Good Service’ medals or ribbons upon demobilisation, and fifty-five WLA members were awarded the Distinguished Service Bar.

A scheme had been advertised in TheLandswoman during its last few months, whereby, through saving 1s per week for six months, the girls would be able to afford a demob outfit, so many having parted with their civilian clothes. They returned to a brave new world, saddened by its losses, but looking forward to its gains. The vote had been secured for some women over 30 years old in January 1918, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised that the women’s contribution on the nation’s farms would not be forgotten. A fact which led some to say that women were only given the vote as a ‘thank you’ for their work in the fields and factories during the Great War.

Two

The First World War in Essex

The ‘War Ag’

War Agricultural Committees were devised during the First World War, although they were far less effective than during the Second World War, by which time many lessons had been learned. The Essex Women’s War Agricultural Association (EWWAA) was inaugurated in February 1916, a month after Miss Courtauld (from the fabric family) and Lady Petre of Ingatestone Hall had been co-opted on to the all-male ‘War Ag’ (War Agricultural Committee). While this may seem a little late in the day, the whole country had been banking on an early end to the war, a hope which was finally abandoned.

By March 1916, branches of the EWWAA were set up around the county, with the one at Tendring holding an early meeting at Colchester Town Hall, presided over by Lady Byng. She explained that in each village, a registrar would be appointed to ensure that any leavers would be immediately replaced, and to ‘induce the women to work on patriotic lines and encourage thrift’ (according to the Chelmsford Chronicle of 24 March).

A meeting of the War Agricultural (Executive) Committee in June 1916 referred to a figure of some 3,500 women having registered, with 500 placed with farmers, although a later meeting suggested a shortage still in Orsett and some other districts. Miss Courtauld expressed an interesting opinion at a meeting towards the end of 1916: she felt that if ‘better educated’ women took up milking and other farm work, then labourers’ wives would be more willing to do the same!

The committee minutes, held in the Essex Record Office, reveal that by June 1916, local recruits included seventy dairymaids, 117 fruit farm workers, twenty-six gardeners and fourteen pea pickers. The minutes also reveal that farmers needed some encouragement to employ women, and they were expected to provide tools and equipment for their use. There were also difficulties finding suitable accommodation for female workers.

Essex, an arable area, had been growing more acres of wheat than any other county for several years, with 30,000 acres more corn than pre-war; and, additionally, meetings of the Essex War Agricultural Committee confirmed the importance of the potato crop. At one of their meetings in April 1918 (reported in the Essex Newsman), it was stated that about 29,000 acres had been ploughed of the 62,000 asked for, with proposals to ‘take in hand some large uncultivated blocks of land that were practically derelict’. The committee agreed that permits should be granted to enable a portion of the farmers’ barley to be consumed by agricultural stock, particularly pigs, although this would be dependent on the harvest, and reference was made to the 1,100 German prisoners of war working on the land in Essex, in many cases alongside the WLA.

The EWWAA did try and help the Essex members of the WLA in a number of ways – pushing for cheap train fares and for the supply of uniforms, for example, with some success. Free uniforms and free rail travel were offered by 1917 to those who signed on for six months or more. At least the recruits did not feel obliged to buy their uniforms in Harrods as the WNLSC (Women’s National Land Service Corps, the WLA’s predecessor) members had done, and many of them took to their bicycles – again, not easy with long skirts.

The uniform of the First World War, when available, was not stylish but it was practical – rubberised waterproof jacket, wide-brimmed hat, breeches or jodhpurs, boots and leather gaiters. One of the association’s many reports from the Uniform Department announced that 1,082 pairs of boots were sent out in 1918. The general reaction to the uniform from the farming community was summed up by a cartoon in Punch in May 1917, depicting a cowman and a member of the Land Army, the cowman saying, ‘you get behind that there water butt. Mebbe cows won’t come if they see you in that there rig.’

First World War recruiting poster. (Author’s collection)

At an EWWAA meeting held in London in September 1917, Lady Petre proudly stated her belief that Essex alone had started providing rest rooms which could be developed to incorporate social purposes, introducing a ‘corporate spirit of esprit de corps’. Selection and hostel committees had been inaugurated and an appeal was launched for ‘gramophones, music or books for the girls’ entertainment’. Just two months later, a photo appeared in the Southend, Leigh & Westcliff Graphic depicting ‘women land workers’ leading a horse-drawn cart laden with sheaves of corn, at the Lord Mayor’s Show in London.

At the end of 1918, another meeting of the EWWAA refers to 275 girls having been trained in Essex since the April meeting, with 277 now in employment. Six ‘motor tractor drivers’ were also employed locally, and six had been ‘trained as thatchers’. Six training centres had been established around the county, the most recent at Layer-de-la-Haye, and there were also five practice farms, one ‘gang hostel’ (for billeted girls) and one probationary training centre. A Mrs Tennant was now in charge of outfitting the Land Army Girls, and Miss Tritton had been appointed Welfare Supervisor. The director of the women’s branch of the Board of Agriculture, Miss Talbot, spoke of working against difficulties and prejudices to become one of the show counties, with regard to both the work and the care taken of the girls, with Essex showing the way in the welfare of land workers. A fine, healthy and ‘generally happy’ body of young women workers were likely to be required after the war in the production of food, and the movement had given women a chance ‘to show their usefulness and adaptability’. Notably, the Agricultural Labourers’ Union was starting to attract female members.

A Shortage of Food, and of Men

Food shortages extended to troops as well as the general public, and it was not unknown for uniformed troops to visit Essex farms to purchase fodder for their horses and food for their own cookhouse. A ‘National Farm Survey’ was carried out to check how farmers were coping, and Warren Farm in Writtle, owned by Mr Christy, was found to be ‘deficient’ in a 1916 survey reproduced in Heritage Writtle. This shows that just eight men were responsible for 326 acres, sixty-two cows, ninety-five sheep, thirty-eight pigs and sixteen horses – no wonder women workers were needed.

Although there was a shortage of male agricultural workers, not all farmers were happy at replacing them with female workers. One farmer, Mr A.B. Markham of Laindon, featured in the Essex Newsman (21 October 1916) because ‘one of the men for whom he had previously obtained exemption [i.e. from service] on condition that women were brought in to help had refused to work with women and had left him’. He had not been able to ‘get another man’ and ‘had therefore given up one milk round’, losing income as a result.

Quite a number of Essex mansions gave employment to Land Girls, thanks to a shortage of gardeners during the years of the war. One of these was Copped Hall in Epping, belonging to the Wythe family. Sylvia Keith’s definitive account (in Nine Centuries at Copped Hall) refers to the Wythes getting ready for church on Sunday morning, 6 May 1917, when a fire broke out, though it was ‘not taken seriously’ to start with. Various causes have been attributed – an electrical fault, or a discarded cigarette. Whatever the cause, far less men than before the war were available to manoeuvre and operate the horse-drawn fire engine and screw together the sections of hose, delivering a rather paltry ‘solitary jet of water’, so necessitating staff, gardeners, keepers – anyone and everyone – to assist in salvaging what they could until fire brigades from other local areas could come to their assistance. Luckily, Land Girls Alice Grimble and ‘Miss N. Deary’ were on hand to help. Mrs Grimble described the glass ‘melting’ in one report, running down the windows ‘like tears’. She was ordered to save ‘rare books and heirlooms’ in the library and climbed from shelf to shelf, throwing what she could down ‘into baskets’. The two girls were shut in another room for a time when the door jammed, and had to wait for the firemen to rescue them, a scary experience. Sadly, the building itself was almost totally destroyed.

The Diverse Face of the WLA in Essex

An October 1917 issue of the Illustrated War News describes members of the WLA as ‘women of leisure, daughters of professional men, women who have given up lucrative employment at their country’s call, and thrown aside the frock of peace for the brown drab overalls of war’. ‘Upper-class’ ladies (in the Downton Abbey mould) were certainly drafted into the Land Army and often employed as grooms and stable managers at studs and racing stables, breaking and training horses for service. At the beginning of the war, paddocks at Elsenham Hall were reputedly staffed by Land Army Girls, who took on horses and mules suspended from active service for being ‘incurably vicious’. These were restored to good form and returned to the fray.

There is an interesting reference to the opening of a Girls’ Friendly Society hostel in ‘Essex Girls in War Time’, printed in the Essex Review during the First World War (Volume 27, 1918–19). Written by Revd F.D. Pierce, it describes the hostel as being ‘first for munition workers but open now to receive land workers, the first hostel in England for land workers’. The honorary secretary of the Girls’ Friendly Society War Time Fund was Miss Read, of Theydon Bois.

One Land Girl (G.L. Andrews) is mentioned in the March 1918 issue of The Landswoman. She is said to be working at White’s Farm in ‘Lamdon’ in Essex, although this is probably a misspelling of Laindon, and had written in response to the Correspondence Club initiative. She is among a list of ‘girls who want letters’, so White’s must have been a lonely spot at the time.

Recruitment and Training

In January 1916, George Edwards, leader of the Farm Workers’ Union, put an appeal in the East Anglian dailies, asking for the women of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk to fill the gap left by the departure of half the Essex agricultural workers.

Even earlier on in the war, dairy farmers were being encouraged to release their male milkers and train women to take their place. The Board of Agriculture wanted to establish training for women in farm work in each county, with the board bearing the cost, so Lady Petre, Miss Courtauld (who described herself as a woman farmer) and others were appointed to discuss the establishment of this facility with the Agricultural Education Committee. Miss Courtauld was in favour of a six-week training course which had worked for some of the ‘pupils’ she had working for her – girls who, she reported at an April 1916 EWWAA meeting in Chelmsford, ‘had done nothing before, and had been waited upon by servants’ but who would now ‘get up at five o’clock and milk, take out the horses and bring in the crops’.

By 1912, the East Anglian Institute of Agriculture had been established in Chelmsford, and this was Lady Petre’s suggestion for a venue for some training to take place. She had started a milking school at Thorndon Hall, her country home in Brentwood in 1916, although this was initially aimed at children who could then help out at local farms. With her help, 100 women had been trained, mainly as milkers, by mid-1917, with sixty still in training, but there were over 6,000 working on the land in Essex just months later (not all members of the WLA) whether trained or not.

Farmers were beginning to promise to train up members of the WLA, and training at the Institute of Agriculture was stepped up to include courses in rabbit catching, rat catching, thatching and coppicing, although of course there were far more training opportunities for men than for women. One Essex farm, in the village of Willingale in Epping Forest, also offered induction and training courses, with wooden cows available with rubber teats as one of its facilities. In the East Anglian Film Archive there is a 1916 newsreel featuring WLA girls working in the fields at Willingale with long dresses and bonnets, some clearing weeds and undergrowth, some feeding piglets and some hoeing between rows of potatoes. (Interestingly, this newsreel also features a horse, wounded at the Battle of Loos, being watered and then ridden side-saddle back to work.) Some farmers came forward early on, with Mr A.J. Dean of Southend offering the EWWAA a large farmhouse and grounds free of rent and taxes for ‘use in the instruction of women’ (Chelmsford Chronicle, 17 March 1916).

Recruitment rallies took place around the county, and were reported in local newspapers. East Coast Illustrated & Clacton News advertised a rally at Colchester on 1 June 1918, and this was reported in the Chelmsford Chronicle, including details of a march-past. The mayor and mayoress were in attendance, with other local notables. One of these, the Hon. Mrs Alfred Lyttelton, said that farmers had come to recognise the value of women workers during the past year. She pointed out that Essex was ‘the greatest fighting county in England’ and that ‘Essex women would not lag behind in backing up their brothers who were fighting in France’.

The Women’s Land Army Rally in Colchester, May 1918, as advertised in the East Coast Illustrated & Clacton News. (Courtesy of Roger Kennell)

The same month there was a recruiting rally in Brentwood organised by the indomitable Lady Petre, with decorated farm vehicles and carts parading through the town, and the High Street was decorated to ‘resemble the scene of an old English Mayday fete’ (Chelmsford Chronicle