"Miss L. Jeffrey Rintoul reported at the Fife Women's County Committee on Agricultural Labour meeting at Cupar yesterday that Miss Baxter's gang at Largo had planted over 100 acres of potatoes, and among other work had done gardens at Upper and Lower Largo". At the meeting, a Mrs Young had called for more leaders in the county and stated that "leaders of Miss Baxter's type were very rare". Miss Rintoul also reported the progress of the Rural Institutes, saying that the membership fee was 2s and that the government took 3d of this as an entertainment tax, as they had a little music at their meetings. At that time there were Institutes at Kilmany, Gauldry, Largo, Ceres and Luthrie, with plans afoot for others at Cameron and Leuchars.
By August of 1918, Misses Baxter and Rintoul had gone down to Somerset to Barwick Camp, Yeovil with a "Scottish gang" to prepare for the Fife harvest by being trained in every phase of the flax harvest. The image below shows women harvesting flax during the Great War in Yeovil just as the Largo ladies would have done. Typically, the good ladies of Largo organised a concert while staying at the camp, which was a great success and raised funds for Red Cross Week. The 3 August St Andrews Citizen covered this story and noted that "All the performers were Scotch. Miss Rintoul gave a Scotch recitation which brought down the house. Miss Stark sang "My ain wee hoose" beautifully". The Scottish ladies at the camp clearly had a great sense of humour - they decorated their tents with inscriptions and mottoes, including "Wha daur meddle wi' me". One tent was called "ma ain wee hoose" with a thistle underneath, others were named "The Beetle 'Ole", "Earwig Villa" and "Multum in Parvo" (a great deal in a small space).
100 Years of Largo SWRI - 1918 - 2018
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