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Overview
When war was declared in 1939, Britain was almost completely dependent on imported timber – but only had seven months of it stockpiled. Timber was critical to the war effort: it was needed for everything from aircraft and shipbuilding to communications and coal mining. The British timber trade was in trouble. Enter the Lumberjills. Lacking in both men and timber, the government made a choice. Reluctantly, they opened lumber work for women to apply – and apply they did. The Women's Timber Corps had thousands of members who would prove themselves as strong and as smart as any man: they felled and crosscut trees by hand, operated sawmills, and ran whole forestry sites. They may not have been on the front line, but they fought their own battles on the home front for respect and equality. And in the midst of heavy labour and wartime, they lived a life, making firm friends and even finding soulmates. In Lumberjills, researcher Joanna Foat tells their story for the first time, and gives them the recognition they so truly deserve.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750991605 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 03/04/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 30 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Women Didn't Wear the Trousers
Life in the 1940s
In the 1940s people didn't believe women could work in forestry, they didn't believe they could fell trees, they didn't believe they were strong. As Laura Bates says in her book Everyday Sexism: 'Disbelief is the first great silencer.'
The Lumberjills were laughed at, they were ridiculed, and their competence was questioned. Life was very different to today in so many ways that we might find it difficult to imagine. Firstly, women did not wear the trousers! I don't mean they only wore a pair of jeans at the weekend. I mean they never wore trousers. It was as acceptable for a woman to wear trousers in the 1940s as it would be for a young man to walk down the high street in a skirt today.
Women wearing trousers were also regarded as being more 'sexually available'. They were thought to be 'provocative' and 'promiscuous'. And why? Because they were able to open their legs more widely in a pair of trousers perhaps? But then, skirts provide easier access. It didn't make much sense then and it certainly doesn't today.
In the 1940s women were regarded as the 'fairer sex'. Women were expected to be genteel, well-behaved, polite, quiet, coy and feminine. They were told by their parents to be 'good girls', which implied they mustn't talk too much, voice their opinion or sound precocious. The young women were actually called 'girls' in the 1940s and referred to themselves as 'girls', and it never occurred to them that this might be patronising. We are far more aware of this discrimination now with campaigns such as Always' #Likeagirl. But worse still, 1940s society generally accepted that women were inferior to men; women were the weaker sex, less intelligent and more incompetent than men. There was an assumption that the standard human model was male, and the female version was a variant and as a result worth less.
I really do mean worth less. In the 1940s there was no such thing as equal pay. Women were paid less than men, even if they did the same job better. The government, under Churchill's leadership, did not believe women deserved equal wages. Earning money was connected to status and so women were only permitted a modest amount of financial autonomy when they went out to work during wartime. The fear was that working women might become working wives and ruin marital harmony, not only because it presented a threat to a man's identity as the 'bread winner', but also to the concept of the full-time housewife.
To help maintain the status quo and keep women in their place, women were not allowed responsibility for household finances or even their own finances. It was not until 1975 and the Sex Discrimination Act that a British woman could open a bank account in her own name, without her husband's permission. Single women still couldn't apply for a loan or credit card in their own name without a signature from their father, even if they earned more than him.
The best career path for women was to gain experience in domestic service to prepare them for looking after their own homes when they were married. So when you begin to read the Lumberjills' stories, don't forget the default destination for all women was to become a housewife. When I met Lumberjill Audrey Broad, she spoke of the pain she felt to be told by her parents that she could not continue in education like her brothers, because she was needed at home to look after her baby brother, Fred. Over and over again I heard stories of the young women being pulled out of education because their families could not justify the expense when they would be getting married, having babies and staying at home. There was no need to invest in a career for women.
I began writing a fictional account of Lumberjills in wartime, but when I shared this novel with the Lumberjills I had interviewed I felt that they did not want their story told as a piece of fiction, glorified and exaggerated for entertainment. Because for the Lumberjills their stories were true and yet no one had believed, acknowledged or remembered what they did in the war for their whole lives. By fictionalising their war work it downplayed the challenges they faced, the stigma they experienced and the incredible advances they made in eroding a view of women as substandard. In the 1940s they smashed down what society thought women were physically and mentally capable of, they forced men to rethink what women could achieve, and they proved women could do things differently to men and still succeed.
So, to give these women a voice, I have written the book using their words as much as possible to let their voices shine. This is their true story. I have used first-hand accounts of the lives of these women, which I had the incredible good fortune to meet, in order for you to immerse yourself in a personal and intimate retelling of their journeys. They have made me laugh and cry with their stories, they have inspired me and been my role models since I met them. They are wonderful. When I have found life tough, I always knew that writing about the Lumberjills would make me feel strong again and they have been there for me in spirit, pushing me on.
I happened to be the person who stumbled across their story and it fired up a storm in my belly. The teenage young woman in me said loudly, 'I would have been a Lumberjill.' I have no doubt that, had I been born at that time, I would have signed up for the Women's Timber Corps. I was very good at maths, I was really strong, very practical and I love being out in nature. My father, who passed away more than a decade ago, even gave me an axe for Christmas one year, long before I had ever heard of the Lumberjills. Bless him! It was one of the most gratefully received and surprising presents I have ever had.
There is another important factor which needs to be brought to your attention. The Lumberjills worked in the forests of Britain. It is an environment which released the young women from their limitations that were preconditioned by society, and gave them a clarity and confidence that they could do anything they wanted. It has long been recognised that being outdoors in nature is a human need, which brings us joy and a natural happiness.
Meet the Lumberjills
Let me introduce you to a few of the Lumberjills to help you to get to know them a little better. You will hear more from the following women throughout the book.
Audrey Broad is the first woman you will hear from and was the first Lumberjill I met. She worked in Southwater, near Horsham in West Sussex, during the war and stayed there for the rest of her life. She was upset that she was not allowed to continue with her education so she could become a teacher like her best friend. When I met her at age 86, she was lovingly placing canes next to rows of gerbera in her large garden to ensure the stems remained perfectly straight. Reluctantly and modestly, she shared how she had often won first, second and third prize in the annual flower show, vegetable growing, jammaking and cake competitions she entered. She was adorable, generous and very astute.
I met Mary Broadhead at her home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She had a very pronounced Yorkshire accent and I soon discovered that she had lost a thumb in the sawmills in Kent while working as a Lumberjill. She worked in a sawmill in Kent by day and volunteered to be a Red Cross ambulance driver by night, to help provide emergency medical services bringing casualties from boats and trains to hospital. She was a tough woman.
I first met mischievous Margaret Finch when we were doing filming for The Great British Menu. The film production company wanted one of the chefs to create a menu inspired by the story of the Lumberjills, so we met in a local hotel in Upton upon Severn, Worcestershire. She was well dressed in a trouser suit and wore a glamourous cream head scarf. She was an adventurous woman and had some amazing stories about driving articulated lorries loaded with timber. She made me laugh so much I cried that day.
Violet Parker was one of the most soulful women I met. She knew I had arrived even before I knocked on the door, and had a wonderful peace and happiness about her. She was unusual in that she openly said she flirted around and had a wonderful time in the war with all forces based in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, and didn't marry until she was 33 years old. She didn't want me to leave until I had watched a film with her, The Magdelene Sisters. It was about young girls who had fallen pregnant, had babies taken away and were put to work in a convent laundry. It was deeply upsetting how the young girls were treated. She was involved in filming some of the convents recently, because she worked in one after the war which was just like that. It was terrible.
Dorothy Swift was 'an outdoor girl at heart' and trained to become a Lumberjill in West Yorkshire. There she became a timber measurer and then moved all over the country, working in forests from Greater Manchester to County Durham and Herefordshire. She campaigned successfully to get underwear listed as part of the official Women's Timber Corps uniform.
On a trip down to Cornwall I met Enid Lenton, one of the Scottish Women's Timber Corps, and having read about these strong, determined and professional forestry workers I was not disappointed. It was very fitting that I met Enid not long after the London 2012 Summer Olympics, as she had just missed out on the chance to compete at the Olympics before the war as a swimmer and was a role model for young women in the 1940s to encourage them to do exercise and sport. The pictures of the muscular Lumberjills reminded me so much of the female Olympic athletes that exciting summer.
I went to see the gorgeous Irene Snow in her house in South Molton in Devon. Straight away she said, 'No one ever asks me about what I did in the war. I didn't think anyone was interested after all these years.' I knew she'd be surprised by my enthusiasm and how much I knew, and we shared stories as if we had been there together. She was a size 18 in the war and always ordered her clothes too small, and it made me laugh when she said, 'Every time I lifted my leg [to climb on the lorry] I ripped my dungarees a bit more.'
In April 1939, Barbara Beddow married a boy she had known from school days. But in September of the same year he was killed: 'He was in the Irish Guards, in barracks in Dover where they were shelled from across the Channel.' So, later that year she went to the Forest of Dean to be trained in forestry. Later promoted to forewoman, she was put in charge of a special project in the New Forest to extract a highly valuable shrub which was used by the military for making high explosives.
The war brought an abrupt end to Margaret Grant's dreams of becoming a professional singer. She was a pacifist, attended meetings of the 'peace pledge' union and was determined not to join any service. However, on second thoughts she decided to volunteer to work in forestry, in case they sent her to munitions factories. Although she found it hard to begin with, her life was transformed, and she discovered an idyllic and peaceful existence working alongside the banks of Loch Awe in Argyll.
All of these women were adorable individuals with different stories and takes on their time at war. But they all had a common shared experience of fighting from the forests to help win the war. All along in my journey with these women, I could hear their voices saying, 'We were never appreciated for what we did,' and, 'We have been forgotten.'
CHAPTER 2Domestic Servants, Shop Assistants and Hairdressers
In September 1939:
Just after war was declared we were in church and the siren went off to test it. So it felt that no place was safe. It was a very frightening thought for a fourteen-year-old. The start of the war had a great effect on my life. It upset the house where we lived. It was strongly built with big beams and so we did not need an air-raid shelter. Our parents moved our iron beds belonging to Myra, Arthur and me to the downstairs room and that's where we had to sleep. One night in the early hours of the morning I heard a screeching plane coming down. So I remember rolling out of bed on to the floor and getting underneath it. That plane ended up in Swanbourne Lake in Arundel. It was a German plane and the pilot died. That was an awakener and made you think about the war.
For the young women like Audrey Broad, age 14, the beginning of the war was very frightening. It is hard to imagine what it would be like today to hear the prime minister declare we are at war. But at 11.15 a.m. on 3 September 1939, families sat around the wireless to hear Neville Chamberlain broadcast the following statement to the nation:
This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
The outbreak of war meant families had to make difficult decisions. There were new financial constraints and the practical problems of travelling to and from school or work. Many young men were being conscripted, leaving behind young women and children; it naturally fell to the young women like Audrey Broad to look after younger children in the family.
At Christmas time in 1939, I was just over 14 years old and it was just a matter of looking for a job. I passed a scholarship to go to college. But, when war was declared my parents advised that it was better not to spend any money on going to college. Mary, my best friend, went on to high school and became a teacher. I was quite upset, and it still hurts that I wasn't able to go to college and become a teacher and that it could not be changed. Although, I would not want to speak badly of my parents as they did what they thought was right at the time. They were very sorry about it. Mum had a new baby, my little baby brother called Fred, and I was needed to help look after him.
We came from a middle-class family with five children. Bernard was the eldest, then Arthur, me, Myra and Fred. Bern went to the boy's service in the navy at 15 years old and Arthur joined the navy later during national service, after some time as a carpenter. Bern benefitted from going to the navy, where he had a lot of encouragement and education in the navy to do well. He did do very well and stayed in the navy for twenty-two years.
Audrey was so determined to prove herself like her brothers. 'In 1942 I was already training with the girls' brigade and became a sergeant. I must have been very authoritative as a sergeant in the girls' brigade. I can't believe it really as I was so withdrawn when I lived at home.'
Education
Across the country, many young women like Audrey Broad were discouraged from continuing with education beyond the age of 14. Molly Paterson would have liked to have gone on to Oban High School and Hostel. However, the system in the Highlands of Scotland in those days was for those living in the outlying areas to stay in the hostel all week, because it was not practicable to travel on a daily basis:
But even though I was probably bright enough to get through the entrance exam Mum said that I would have to go out to work. So I went to Dundee to stay with my aunt and get a job. I started work as a needlework apprentice in a large department store where I had to sweep floors, make tea and learn the stitches.
It was common practice in the day that only young women from wealthier families, like Olive Edgley, should remain in education:
My twin sister, Vera, and I were born in Newcastle, moved to Wooley Bay when we were 2 years old and when we were 7, father bought a house on the side of Lake Ullswater where we spent holidays. Then when war broke out we stayed in the Lake District and went to school at Queen Elizabeth Grammar in Penrith.
In the 1940s, Britain was divided by class and women from poorer families had no choice but to leave school and start work at 14 years old. When Irene Snow grew up she lived between Bradford and Bingley, West Yorkshire, in a village called Wilsden: 'After I left school I worked in the woollen mills. I was one of seven children. We didn't have a lot of money but always had enough food as we were tenants living on a farm.' Edna Holland also worked in the woollen mills and was a spinner.
In the south, working-class women were employed in factories, making products such as medicine, poison or baby bottles in a glass factory or cigarettes, snuff and cigars in a tobacco factory.
Domestic Service
The beginning of the war signalled very uncertain times and big changes were on the way. Most young women were still under parental control in their teenage years and it was commonplace in the 1940s for women to be sent to work in domestic service roles. Often employed in larger houses with a team of staff, the young women would clean and tidy reception rooms, serve afternoon tea, dinner and answer room service bells as maids, scullery maids or the more senior parlour maids.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Lumberjills"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Joanna Foat.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1 Women Didn't Wear the Trousers,
2 Domestic Servants, Shop Assistants and Hairdressers,
3 Promise of 'A Healthy, Happy Job',
4 Green Beret, Tacketty Boots and Special Issue Undies,
5 It Felt Like Prison on Training Camp,
6 She Fells with Ease 10-Ton Trees,
7 Danger, Dust and Noise in Sawmills,
8 Heave Ho, Haulage, Tractors and Transport,
9 Notebook, Measuring Tape and Mathematics,
10 Bonfires, Charcoal Burning and Planting,
11 Thirty-Two Shillings a Week or Less,
12 Freezing Cold Camps and Nowhere to Stay,
13 How We Survived All Day on Jam Sandwiches, I'll Never Know,
14 Prejudice: The Female 'Forestry Handicap',
15 A Nomadic Life Through All Seasons,
16 Lifelong Friendship, Love and Romance,
17 Three-Quarters Off Sick for a Month,
18 Praise and Jubilation at the End of the War,
19 We Hate to Think We're Forgotten,
20 First World War: Pioneering Women in Forestry,
Timeline,
Notes,
Bibliography,