During 1941 my parents were asked to billet a young girl who was going to work on a neighbour’s farm. They agreed, as any extra money would come in extremely useful. She came up from London into the deep countryside of Herefordshire, unsure of her future and nervous of the people she’d find there.

Dorothy was only 18, and had no experience of animals or the countryside at all, and on top of that the farm where she’d been engaged to work was a mile and a half away from where she was to live. She’d brought with her a bicycle to use as transport, but unfortunately Dorothy had never learned to ride! My mother was determined to rectify this situation as soon as possible.

Employed as a relief milkman, she had to be at the other farm early in the morning, which meant leaving at six or earlier, and of course walking the mile and a half back in the evening. Three miles a day, seven days a week (I doubt if youngsters today would tolerate such working conditions), but, fortified with her favourite breakfast, fried bread spread with thick marmalade, off she’d go.

During a two-week period when she wasn’t working in the late evenings, my mother taught Dorothy to ride her bicycle. The lessons took place on a straight piece of country road more akin to a dirt track. As there were no motor vehicles to worry about, it was as safe a place as you could find.

To begin with, my mother recalls, Dorothy fell off regularly, suffering skinned knees and elbows and, more painfully, numerous nettle stings. Mistaking nettles for a safe landing area (she had no idea what nettles were or did) she decided that they looked the far better option than landing once more on the gravel road. To alleviate her pain, mother rushed to her aid with a copious amount of dock leaves to rub on the affected areas, the leaves being a well-known country remedy for nettle stings.

Slowly but surely Dorothy got the hang of it, and after my mother’s intense training regime she was able to cycle to work.

Cycles weren’t the only things that Dorothy learned to ride, though. She was a hard-working girl, and helped my parents with their tasks after her ‘farm day’ had finished. She helped Mother with the washing and Father with the milking, which of course was done by hand — a skill she had to be taught. However, her favourite animals were the horses, not the cows, and one horse in particular called Beauty.

During what little spare time she had she taught herself to ride Beauty, who was of course a working horse and not really to be ridden, liis function on the farm, along with the other horses, was the ploughing and hauling of various carts and other farm equipment. The fact that she became able to ride him, bareback, of course, as there was no saddle, only demonstrated Dorothy’s innate ability and her obvious affinity with Beauty.

Unfortunately, after only 18 months on the farm, Dorothy became quite ill and, although she did recover, began to wish for her home in London. Not long afterwards she left, never to return, but out of the blue she sent my mother some photographs of her wedding to an army sergeant.

Regrettably my mother neglected to write on the back of the photographs the names of the people in them, so we don’t know the name of the man Dorothy married, and more tragically we have even forgotten her surname.

Our only reminders of her are the photographs of her wedding and the most treasured one of Dorothy riding Beauty.

Gordon Lloyd.