Hard work beginning in freezing cold mornings with 3.30am starts.
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This is one of the first things remembered by Kathleen Savage when asked about working in the Land Army.
And yet shortly following, the 92-year-old tells stories of camaraderie, doing whatever needed to be done, and the character building experience of a lifetime.
Originating from Cronulla, Mrs Savage originally wanted to be a nurse for the war effort, but instead joined the Land Army in 1943 - her first time away from home at 17.
After picking asparagus in Bathurst, there was no going back - she loved it, and was then moved to Griffith with 480 other women to work on farms, for one pond 50 a week.
"The first night we had to have a shower, we were filthy dirty," she remembered.
"And I waited, because I wasn't going in with two or three other girls because that wasn't the way I was brought up," Mrs Savage recalled.
"The water was cold when I went in and it wouldn't get rid of all the dirt. It was only two or three nights later and then I was in there with the rest of them!"
While it is true the Anzac spirit was forged overseas and in the battles, for her the spirit was forged right here in the MIA.
"We helped the war effort. They reckon if it wasn't for the Land Army girls there wouldn't have been no-one to pick the oranges and the peaches, pears, apples, all the vegetables."
After the war, she thought her time in Griffith was done - but romance brought her back.
"When the war was over I went home. And the boss I worked for decided I was a hard worker, so he married me." She and Rob Savage were married for 59 years.
Her son Rob Savage says she jokes about why she married the Griffith farmer.
"She always jokes that she had to marry Dad to get some of the money back that he didn't pay her," he laughs.
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In the face of those who say Anzac Day is glorifying war, she vehemently disagrees.
"We are not glorifying war. We are trying to remember the people who went away and never came home.
"War is sad. It doesn't do good for anyone. They lose people and things change.
"Peace in the world is my main aim."
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