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Bettina Gets The Axe
She will always be my Aunty Betty but it was only recently when she appeared on national television that I found out that her full name is Bettina Rose Astle.
When I was a wee boy, more than a wee time ago, we had family get togethers, and my Aunty Betty would talk about the war years when she was in the Timber Corps. I used to ask my mother, “What does that mean mum?” “She means the Land Army son”. But that isn’t true. The Land Army girls quite rightly got a lot of recognition after the war but Lumber Jills, as they became affectionately known, got very little until recently. It changed when Professor Walder was forming a war museum in Horsforth and he studied the part that the Lumber Jills played. He put his feelers out to find some serving girls and found Bettina, a great find as she can talk for England! The Timber Corps story can now be found in a lot of war museums in the UK, including Bolton.
Let me take you back to the beginning. Bettina worked for her father who was my Grandfather Len Tobutt, in the family sports store upon leaving school. In 1942 she got a letter calling her up to serve her country. She had a choice between serving in the Land Army, dairy farming or working in the forests. She didn’t fancy milking cows so she decided to join the Timber Corps. She had a months training in Bury St. Edmunds, she was given a 4lb axe and was ordered to chop trees down. They put the ladies 14 yards apart just in case they let go of the axe. They didn’t want to kill their workmates! She was transferred to the Yorkshire Dales where she had to saw the trees down, cut them in half and then load them onto a lorry.
There were no toilets, you had to dig your own! Sometimes they had to walk miles before they started work, and if they had wanted a social night out they had a twelve mile walk to the nearest town. Better to go to bed with a cup of Bovril. No wonder the London girls went back home, they didn’t have that northern grit. Bettina was posted to Overseal in Derbyshire and that was where she met her future husband Gordon who was in the RAF. Sadly, Gordon died last year. Their son Roger insisted on having a celebration of his fathers life. The coffin swung into the church to Glen Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ and went out to The Goons ‘Ying Tang, Ying Tang’. Gordon loved The Goons. It made everyone smile.
Bettina has appeared on national TV twice recently talking of her experiences. Firstly, on Sunday mornings’ ‘Country File’, and more recently on ‘The Paul O’Grady Show’. She presented Paul with an apple pie. He was off ill the following week. I hope there wasn’t a connection!
Bettina is now 86 years old. She always keeps busy making things, gardening or her favourite pastime, talking. Either spending hours on the phone or doing group talks.
Bettina Rose Astle was born in Watford and has lived in Overseal for 60 years, but her heart will always belong to Lancashire.........
The Bolton Lass with an axe to grind.
Do you know of any unsung heroes or characters who deserve to have their story told?
It could be in sport, business, charity or anything else.
If so, please telephone Dougie Tobutt on 01204 308506
