My Land Girl Years: 1939-1948

We were a lively and energetic bunch of girls from all over Lancashire, and while some of us had a farming background, the majority did not . . . We were to get on well together.' From 1939 to 1948, Veronica Rattray worked on farms in Lancashire as a land girl, and she has faithfully recorded these crucial years of her life in this revealing memoir. The war years - a period of hardship for people in a nation under threat - was, for these land girls, a time of effort, self-sacrifice and hard work for low wages. They got on with their tasks, milking cows, herding sheep in the Pennines, and tending the huge shire horses that worked on the farms, and they got on well with each other. The author's reward was to make new friends and to meet Queen Elizabeth in London, a moment she treasures. Here are her recollections of a happy time, when people had fewer choices and made the best of what they had.