A lost army of women is getting long overdue credit. Jane McGowan talks to the author bringing the Timber Girls out of the woodwork...
Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my aunty Violet. My mum told me that she had worked as a Land Girl during World War II, plucked from the satanic mills of our northern town to serve in the soft folds of Surrey – there was even a tiny, black and white picture to prove it. I remember squinting at that image, trying to relate my bespectacled, twinset-wearing aunt to the hearty-looking, laughing sun-kissed girl sat astride a group of hay bales.
I never asked my aunty about what she had actually done; never thought to inquire as to how she must have felt being sent miles from home, employed in backbreaking work in some stranger’s field. Had her homecoming been heralded in the same way as that of her three serving brothers?
And then, in 2000, my aunty Violet died – and, along with her, a slice of history. What remained was regret: the nagging wish that I had taken the time to chat to her about her contribution to victory in 1945; to let her know that I, for one, was grateful for all that ploughing, planting and perspiration.
Enter Joanna Foat, an environmental marketer from Guildford. It was while pitching a project for Radio 4 that she stumbled on the wartime heroics of the ‘Lumberjills’: a 15,000-strong division of females known officially as the Women’s Timber Corps (WTC), recruited like the Land Girls, but specifically to work with trees. Jo had never heard of them – and, as she soon found out, nor had anyone else.
“I immediately thought: ‘Wow! This is an amazing story that needs to be told and I must do all I can to tell it,’” says Jo, whose book Lumberjills: Britain’s Forgotten Army has just been published by The History Press.
Recruited from all classes and corners of the land, most of the girls had been employed in such traditional female occupations as waitressing, secretarial work and domestic service. From those Jo met, it was clear that the chance to escape their daily drudgery and family expectations constituted the primary draw.
“It is really hard for us to imagine what life was like back then. People were still reeling from the Great Depression and families often had no chance to think about career or education options for their children – especially girls. They needed food on the table and that was about it.”
Initially, the government had been reluctant to believe women capable of arboreal work, heavy and dirty as it was. Needs must, however, and the call went out. Thousands of women joined the corps, charged with felling and crosscutting trees, operating sawmills, replanting and managing forestry land. A few stayed on after the war to help restock our forests.
“A lot of women liked being physical and wanted to work outside and they seized the chance,” says Jo. “They were breaking down social norms – real pioneers.”
It was strenuous work, toiling outdoors for long hours, day after day. Nor, in the wisdom of the times, did women require as many rations as men. Those interviewed by Jo said they mostly survived on bread and jam.
The Lumberjills were issued with dungarees, breeches, heavy-duty smocks, boots and wellingtons, along with a green beret that distinguished them from the Land Army. For many, it was the first time they had worn trousers. And while they struggled to adapt the statutory uniform to their needs, some regulation items – underwear – generally stayed in the bag. Each girl was supplied with two chin-high vests and two pairs of “interlock, long-legged knickerbockers”, quickly dubbed “passion killers”.
The training lasted four weeks in billets likened to “prison camps” by Lumberjill Mary Broadhead. “At 9 pm we could have a cup of cocoa… and at 10 pm the camp gates were closed. If you were late back, you were taken to see the board of instructors to be told off and given extra work,” she recalls.
For most of the girls, it was their first time away from their families and many struggled initially with loneliness and fatigue.
“Lots of the girls cried with homesickness and just wouldn’t stop,” Mary recalls. The Lumberjills saw themselves as an “elite” force – not milking cows or collecting vegetables, but wielding axes and making geometrical calculations and business decisions.
“I wanted to be a timber girl because they were tougher than farmers,” says Mary. Hard to believe though it may be, back then it was a novelty to see women in dungarees and gumboots, taking an axe to a tree. Consequently, locals would often head down to the forests to watch them work. On the whole, they were supportive, but some ridiculed their attempts, likening them to beavers nibbling away at the wood rather than felling smoothly.
Moreover, some sections of the community also questioned the morality of these single, trouser-wearing young females, who were often branded as promiscuous.
Unlike their Land Army counterparts, who found work on farms and remained there for long periods, timber girls were required to travel around the country to wherever they were needed and were left to find their own billets. Some hosts were more welcoming than others. If the girls found “good digs”, they would opt to cycle great distances to the forests – up to 20 miles – rather than look for new accommodation.
Lumberjill Joan Turner recalls living in a room that had minimal comfort.
“This lady had bare boards and camp beds and charged us half our wages,” she says. It was against this harsh backdrop that the girls kept Britain’s timber stocks afloat, providing vital supplies for coal mining, shipbuilding and munitions. But in 1945, as victory dawned, their contribution was quickly and quietly dismissed. Many of their duties were taken over by prisoners of war and men home from the action, and it wasn’t long before most of the women were returned to the seclusion of the hearth.
“At the end of the war they got absolutely no recognition for what they did,” explains Jo. “They were left out of the celebrations and not invited to go on Remembrance Day parades, as they weren’t part of the fighting forces. It seemed to many of them that their work hadn’t actually been that important after all and they just let themselves disappear.
“One lady told me that no one had ever asked her what she did in the war. She said the girls themselves had been very proud of what they did, but that no one else really cared. That was one of the reasons I wanted to give them a voice.
“In the immediate aftermath, some wrote to local newspapers about their work and their treatment, but were dismissed as ‘making a fuss’ when so many had lost their lives.”
Finally, in 2008 – more than 60 years after VE Day – the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, presented the surviving members of both the Land Army and the WTC with a badge to mark their invaluable achievements. Even then, however, while the PM acknowledged the two separate organisations, the Lumberjills received the wheatsheaf badge of the Land Army, rather than their own fir tree and crown.
“They were disappointed not to get their own badge,” admits Jo. “But, on the whole, I think they were just thrilled at the recognition. So little has been documented about the WTC that the badge error was sort of to be expected.”
Inevitably, only a few members remain of this forgotten army. When I spoke to Jo, she had received an email that morning from a Lumberjill living in Australia, and the emotion in her voice spoke volumes.
“Oh, I was so thrilled! The lady is on one of the photos in the book, but I hadn’t spoken to her. She sent me a picture of herself with the book and thanked me for telling the story. It is just so wonderful to hear things like that.
“I have been thanked by relatives and the women themselves for spending time with them and showing an interest. I loved meeting them all – wonderful women who have never lost their sense of adventure. One was about to celebrate her 90th birthday with a helicopter ride.
“Strong and resilient, they can only be described as inspirational. They have more than earned their place in our history.” Just like my aunty Violet.
Lumberjills: Britain’s Forgotten Army, by Joanna Foat. Published by The History Press (thehistorypress.co.uk), £14.99
