The roots of the Women’s Land Army lie in the First World War. There was an acute farm labour shortage because workers were needed for military service and horses were commandeered by the forces. By 1918 there were 23,000 Land Girls at work milking, ploughing and herding. In 1939, the farming community of Britain greeted the idea of the WLA with scorn. More than 100,000 Land Girls and 11 years later, it was the National Farmers' Union that protested most when the WLA was officially disbanded. After an introduction about the Women’s Land Army in the First and Second World Wars, there follows reminiscences, recorded recently by the editor, from ten ex-Landgirls.

Co-published with The European Ethnological Research Centre (EERC), an independent unit within Celtic & Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

The editor, Elaine Edwards, is the curator at the National Museum of Rural Life.

Find out more about the Scottish Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps at the Land Girls and Lumber Jills Exhibition  at the National War Museum.