Cardiff and the Valleys at War, 1939–45 by Gary Dobbs

Author:Gary Dobbs [Dobbs, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, British, Military, World War II
ISBN: 9781473864634
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2018-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

The Ministry of Agriculture was also campaigning for women to join the Women’s Land Army, whose members became more commonly known as land girls. Again there was no shortage of volunteers and by 1943 there were in excess of 80,000 land girls in the UK with a large percentage of these working in the Welsh rural areas.

Land girls undertook a range of arduous tasks and would work long hours, often getting up at the crack of dawn and only downing tools when it got dark. Initially the women were not made to feel welcome on many farms, but soon farmers were crying out for them. They would do everything from milking and making butter and cheese to the heavy toils of digging, planting, and harvesting potatoes and other crops. They would cut and point stakes for fencing and work at pest control. In 2009, former land girl Joyce Collins told Wales Online that she remembered chasing rats with a pitchfork during her time as a land girl in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Women’s Land Army was formed in June 1939, by the outbreak of the war it numbered 1,000 volunteers, and in 1941 conscripts were added and their ranks swelled to 20,000. Their uniform was a felt hat, green sweater, brown corduroy trousers and a pair of Wellington boots.

The girls in the Land Army were not paid as much as their counterparts in the services, nor did they have the same privileges such as free travel. They worked a minimum fifty-hour week, more during harvest time, and received 28 shillings a week. It was not until 1944, when a massive recruitment drive for more land girls was launched, that their wages were increased to £2 8s a week with provisions for food if they were billeted away from home.

Information for women regarding conscription.

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