Throughout Women's History Month 2023, our Co-Founder Nicky Reynolds was sharing a different Suffolk Land Girls story every day. She made the decision to hold off on the 5th and final part of our celebration of Women's History Month to post the last slice on the last day of the month.
In the final visit to look at land army life as written in the magazine 'The Land Girl' we end with a snapshot of March 1945.
‘Lady Denman Resigns’ by Margaret Pike Chief Administrative Officer.
Lady Denman's resignation from her post as Honorary Director of the Women's Land Army announced on February 17th , is a shattering blow to all those who have been connected with the Land Army during nearly six years of honorable history.
Lady Denman entered public life at the age of twenty when she became chairman of a London liberal organisation. She spent three years in Australia when Lord Denman was governor General and returned just before the last war during which she was connected with the land army of those days. She has been chairman of the national federation of women’s institutes since its beginning, was a member of the executive committee of the land settlement association and of Lord Justice Scott’s committee on land utilisation, and is a trustee of the UK Carnegie trust. In her spare time she has shown considerable prowess and great activity in various sporting fields; she is a skilled performer with an axe and during land army days has frequently yielded it to good effect during her leisure.
The WLA has been very fortunate to have as its director one with such wide experience of public work and intimate knowledge of country life and ways. Lady Denman’s wise leadership has guided the land army through many doubts and difficulties. She has fought its battles with valiant determination and faced its problems with the steady impartial judgement for which she is famous.
Lady Denman’s keen personal interest in members of the land army has made her visits to counties for rallies and meeting her happiest experiences of the war years. She has felt and expressed the warmest admiration for the cheerful and steadfast spirit in which volunteers tackled hard and unfamiliar jobs in every kind of circumstance and all sorts of weather. For their interests and wellbeing she was always the first to fight, for her own the last.
Leaving the land army, she takes with her our gratitude, our admiration, our affection and our confidence that though we have of necessity lost our leader we have not lost our friend.
Interesting articles in this edition include a farewell by Trudie Denman where she sets out her feelings of pride and thanks for the amazing achievements of the membership and HQ advise on the land army case – post war benefits.
Other articles cover the management of dairy herds and for the first time the land army features a focus on members who are notable performers in a series called ‘Star Turns’.
Instead of a poem there was a knitting pattern for some rather super knitted gloves.
In county news – West Suffolk reports on a fatal accident in Lakenheath that sadly claimed the life of Miss J Hart WLA 138799 and in East Suffolk plans were discussed for a variety concert followed by a grand march through the town planned for April 7th.
In East Suffolk the enrolled members working were 973 and West 567.
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