In Memory of the Land Girls (and My Aunt Edna)

Edna Hall: Portrait of a Land Girl 

(SA/2026)

 

I. 

 

The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War. The aim was to replace the tens of thousands of male farmhands who had been called up to fight (and die) for king and country with what were known as Land Girls. 

 

It was their job to pick potatoes, shovel shit and do all the other necessary work to ensure the nation didn't starve. For this they were paid 18 shillings a week, or a pound, if they were considered by their employers to be exceptionally efficient or hardworking (the latter might even be rewarded with a Good Service Ribbon). 

 

 

II. 

 

The WLA was disbanded in 1919, but reformed in the summer of 1939 under the same name in anticipation of a new war with Germany and the organisation continued until November 1950. It was during this period that my aunt Edna, pictured above (not in official uniform), briefly worked as a Land Girl. 

 

Whether she volunteered or was conscripted and whether her photo ever appeared in The Land Girl - the WLA members' magazine (1940-1947) - I don't know.    

 

Whilst the majority of the Land Girls already lived in the countryside, more than a third came from London and the industrial cities of the north of England, including Newcastle, which is where my aunt was from. I like to think she enjoyed herself in the WLA - more fun, perhaps, than being a shop assistant, but I can imagine the work would be demanding and living conditions not great [1]. 

 

Thank goodness for hot cups of tea, cigarettes, and camaraderie!

 

Outrageously, Land Girls like my aunt were not given any official commemoration until 2012, when the Prince of Wales unveiled the first memorial to the WLA of both World Wars, on the Fochabers estate in Moray, Scotland. Whilst people like to believe better late than never, it's still an insult and just one more reason to despise the British state [2].

 

Just as insulting was the fact that five years earlier, following a campaign led by former Land Girl Hilda Gibson, DEFRA announced that the efforts of the Women's Land Army and the Women's Timber Corps - a sister organisation concerned with forestry rather than farming - would be formally recognised with the presentation of a specially designed commemorative badge to the surviving members. 

 

This badge of honour - a small, belated gesture for a generation that had literally fed the nation during its darkest days - was awarded in July 2008 to over 45,000 former Land Girls (my Aunt, who was in her mid-eighties by then, wasn't one of them).   

 

 

Notes. 

 

[1] The Land Girls, often far from home, were housed in hostels; communal existence allowing for a shared experience and the forging of a collective identity. Evenings were often spent at local village dances; a necessary reprieve from the physical toll of fifty-hour weeks and anxiety about the War. 

 

[2] The neglect of the Land Girls is shameful, but not surprising. When the WLA disbanded in 1950, the women simply returned to their civilian lives, their contribution relegated to the footnotes of history.