It's Not a Man's Job

Philippa Snow

I was ever so thin, tall and thin. You can’t imagine it now, but I was ever so thin. I used to help my father. I had to hang onto a pulley while he slit their throats. Well, you don’t learn by sitting at home reading a book about it. And there used to be a gentleman, he used to come round and leave so much money, half-a-crown for each of them. I knew a girl in Larkford, she could kill quicker than any man. It’s not a man’s job. It doesn’t necessitate muscle, does it? You have to be really interested to do it. I wouldn’t say anyone could pick it up and do it. John, my fiancé, says to me, “1 could do it twice as fast as what you can.” I don’t argue with him, but for one thing he couldn’t do it, because he has never been used to it, and for another thing you have to have a certain amount of knowledge to do it, anyway. I’d always hear what the other girls said, and what fun they were having. You know, you used to go out of an evening with the girls, and they’d say what they were doing and the fun they were having, and you knew what you’d missed. But I just didn’t seem to be cut out for it. Summertime, I’m working all night. There’s nothing else for it, only the work. But if you want the money, you got to work for it. It don’t come easy, do it? I don’t find it easy. Sometimes I’m filled with nerves and I can’t account for it. Your heart thumps and you wish you’d never taken it on. Another time you’ll not be a bit dismayed. It just flows. When you have a fit of nerves and say you’ll never do it again, the next time it’ll just flow from you. 

I’m a bit of a rebel, I suppose, but only in the sense that I don’t see myself as having any particular responsibility at all. What I do, I do as an individual, as a Christian who loves the Lord, and because I love him, I want to serve him. It’s a very old custom. It used to be a bit of a superstition but now it’s just a thanksgiving to God. If you give of yourself, you receive back. You’ve got to realise that you’ve got to make sacrifices. The Church is very strong here, and it certainly holds its people together. They don’t stray far from it. They used to have shooting parties, go out shooting. They came with all the gear—they took all the furniture out, took the pictures off the wall. It was a very frightening experience. They used to keep them alive till they ran at them, you know. Their mouths were sealed up. I had to take the pail of water from the pump and keep the copper going. That great big copper that had to be kept with hot water. I had to keep the fire stoked underneath. Then there was a big tub there that had to be kept full of cold water. My father used to kill a lot to send them up to London, and the next day I used to help him sew them all up in hessian. I didn’t want to do it at first, but I didn’t have any choice, really, because the committee said it was a good thing. We got it all over with and it all went off quite well.

They always said that if a woman was unwell or had her period, it would go wrong. That’s what they always said, so I couldn’t be around then. They were still saying that in the Second War. Maybe it has been known to go wrong, but I don’t think so. I think a woman’s outlook is good for anything. I think women tend to see things differently to men—a different point of view and sometimes a more practical point of view than a man. But men like to think they’re better. I don’t know why—I suppose that’s life really, isn’t it? ‘Our motto is “For Home and Country.” So I suppose we try and uphold the family and traditional values. If you were a real career girl that never wanted to marry or anything, I don’t think it would be your scene. Most women I think are happy in the home. They're tied up in their family life and it’s enough for them. But not for me. If I had to sit here and look at this house all day, I’d go stark raving mad. I couldn’t bear to be a maid to somebody. Open the door, “Yes Ma’am”. Oh no. Even this work was a freedom, compared to that. But you know, you can get stuck with something. It’s so easy in a village. They say “Oh, go and see so-and-so, she’ll do it.” Then it becomes something you’ve got to do, and it’s no longer a pleasure to you. 

If I didn’t have such a big place here, and if it wasn’t such a hole, I should love to get out. For my mental attitude as much as anything. I would, really. I don’t come in contact with much here. I’m just here, in this little corner, this hole. When I was eighteen I was involved in a bad road accident and fractured my neck, and after that I was rather a nervous type of person. I used to dread getting up in the mornings. I was just terrified of life, I suppose you could say, before I found this work. I never left the village, except when I had a nervous breakdown and was in hospital. This is unreal country. It can be very sinister sometimes. I don’t know many people who will walk through the fens at night. A number of people are drowned each year. There’s a certain culture here too, a kind of folklore. The fens have always been an isolated, strange place. There is at least one inherited disease in this village which is practically extinct in other villages, because of the inbreeding, because of the isolation. The people are very secretive and you have to take them their way. And one of the differences between an outsider and a local person is that local people know where they belong. Maybe it's different if you go to a town, things are different there, aren't they? But no, it’s not a man’s job. It doesn’t necessitate muscle, does it? You have to be really interested to do it. You have to know where you belong.