HAMPSHIRE, 1947
‘Bunny!’ called a voice, startling the young woman as much as it did the cow she was milking. She whispered into Tulip’s flank, ‘Easy there, girl,’ as her father Leo ducked into the milking shed.
‘Where is he?’ grunted Leo.
Seventeen-year-old Bunny rose calmly from the stool to reply… ‘If you mean Karel, he’s mending that fence post in the bottom field, like you asked him to.’
Leo frowned. ‘Taking him long enough. I’ll go check on him. You finish here.’
What else would she be doing, she wondered crossly, then relaxed her shoulders and nodded.
The war and its aftermath had brought many challenges for the farm – but it had also brought young Czech refugee Karel Novak into her life.
For most of that life, her ma having died when she was little, it had been just Bunny and her dad.
Then, during the war, a gaggle of land girls had arrived to work on the farm.
Bunny had never seen the like. On the one hand, they’d brought a heady whiff of sophistication from the outside world, with their perfume and cigarettes. On Saturday evenings, they’d set off arm in arm for the cinema in the nearby town of Tollington, usually hitching a ride on the way, legs seamed with gravy browning, faces bright with the lipsticks they swapped between them.
At 13, Bunny could only admire from afar.
On the other hand, some of the land girls – like Ruby and Flo – had been clueless, literally not knowing one end of a pitchfork from the other when they arrived.
