One of the first jobs we had on the kibbutz was looking after the turkeys, I had to feed them, clean up after them and pick up dead ones! One of my friends had to inseminate them and the third friend was lucky she escaped the turkeys and got a job in the kitchens washing small dishes.

Our kibbutz was quite large and had a number of factories on site producing an assortment of; polysterene containers, bagged peanuts, fruit juice, and a metal factory. I worked in all of them and hated each one as I much preferred being out in the sunshine. The kibbutz had a massive orchard full of orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit trees. A massive cow shed and cotton fields.

My favourite job was working in the cotton fields, I used to love wandering around the fields fixing the irrigation pipes, that was until I nearly cut off one of my fingers, and then I was moved back to the orchards!

My worst job was cleaning out the toilets and showers which the volunteers used, oh my god the smell of the mens urinals! Eugh it was horrendous!!! I couldn’t, I tried, I really really did, but I just couldn’t bear the smell, so the only thing that I could do was put a peg on my nose, wrap a large t shirt around my head and I got a bucket and filled it with hot soapy water and bleach and then I ran in and threw it! Can anyone explain to me why oh why there was ‘toilet’ not in the toilet but on and around the toilet eugh!!!

The rest of the kibbutz looked like a great big holiday camp it was so clean and modern, we had a basket ball court, an outdoor swimming pool, a coffee bar, a large restaurant and a cinema.

We met so many people from all around the world there were some great characters there, and over the months my friends and I even became the pub managers! Well it wasn’t really a pub but a large shed, with a fridge and a record player! We used to order the beers in and serve behind the ramshackle bar!

We often had BBQs with our great friends the turkeys, and we used to sit outside in the evening listening to one of the volunteers strumming their guitar while we sipped our Maccabi’s and smoked our time cigarettes!

Life was so peaceful and uncomplicated, all we had to do was make sure we got up in time for work, once we had finished we would shower, eat lunch and then hitch down to the local beach or lie by the pool all afternoon. I am a non swimmer and one day I had the misfortune of being thrown in, I remember floundering around in that pool until someone shouted out, Jean stand up!!!!