Holding the Home Front

Description

In recent years the Second World War's Land Girl has caught the public imagination. We've seen her in films and television series and novels. We might be misremembering her, we might have distorted her image into one that suits a twenty-first century audience, but we haven't forgotten. Other things have been forgotten, though. One could be forgiven for supposing that the story of the Women's Land Army starts in 1939. But it's a much older and more complicated history British agricultural policy during the First World War was held up as a success story; coming through a 'great national emergency', domestic food production was higher at the end of the war than at the start, the average calorific value of the British diet barely changed and bread never had to be rationed here. As the press reported starvation and food riots overseas, the 1918 harvest was held up as 'one of the great achievements of the War.' In 1917, at the darkest hour, when Britain's food security looked most precarious, it was said that, 'If it were not for the women agriculture would be absolutely at a standstill on many farms.' Is that true? Were women really keeping the wheels turning? Using previously unpublished accounts and photographs, this book is an attempt to understand how the return of women to the fields and farmyards impacted agriculture - and, in turn, an examination of how that experience affected them. This is the story of the First World War's forgotten land army. AUTHOR: Caroline Scott is originally from Lancashire. She has a PhD in History, a fascination with the First World War and a house full of khaki-coloured bric-a-brac. In addition to Those Measureless Fields, she is currently working on two non-fiction projects for Pen and Sword a history of the Women's Land Army during the First World War and a book about the Manchester 'Bantam' Battalion. Caroline lives in France and possesses more trench art than is probably tasteful.

Caroline Scott is a freelance writer and researcher. She has a PhD in History and a particular interest in the roles played by women during the First World War. In addition to Holding the Home Front, she has written a novel, Those Measureless Fields, for Pen & Sword, and a history of the Manchester Bantam battalion. Her family was farming in Lancashire in 1914.

"This is a well-researched his-tory of the British Women's Land Army in WW1 and how it paved the way for the success of the WLA in the Second World War."-- "World War One Illustrated, Summer 2018" "When one thinks of the Land Girls, one almost certainly thinks of their contribution to the darkest days of the Second World War, whereas in fact, there was a women's land army in full flow during the first world war too. Caroline's wonderful book sets the record straight with beautiful illustrations and witting testimony from people who were there and saw how hard these wonderful women worked to keep Britain going during their darkest hours. Superb."-- "Books Monthly"