Scotland's Land Girls: Breeches, Bombers and Backaches

Life in the Scottish Women's Land Army (SWLA) is revealed in this book by some of the many women who gave vital service to their nation at a time of national emergency. For many, wartime service on the farm was preferable to work in a munitions factory or their everyday working life in a shop or insurance office. To others, service in the SWLA afforded them the opportunity to indulge their love of rural life by working in the fields and with animals.While many of the tasks carried out by the 'Land Girls' were the same across Scotland, indeed across the United Kingdom, individual circumstances meant that each 'Girl' had a different 'War'. In the lively accounts included here in memoir and interview, we learn of life as a Land Girl living in a hostel working on many farms, and of life living and working on a single farm. We hear of tearful goodbyes to parents and childhood and of joyful encounters with Royalty and cocktails.
This is an oral history of a story, not told before, of an unusual development in the history of the women's movement and in agriculture - the Scottish Women's Land Army (SWLA). The Scottish WLA was comprised of girl farmers who took over the jobs of men.