Women's Timber Corps, Culford Training Camp, Bury St. Edmunds
The Lumberjills


Here are some of the amazing women I met...


Over one hundred women or their families responded to articles in local papers to find the forgotten Lumberjills.  Joanna travelled the country to meet over 60 of the women. In their late eighties and nineties,  many of them could not believe anyone was interested in their story after all that time.

Forgotten


Audrey Broad (above) one of the first women Joanna met. She said, "It was only many years later that I began to realize that we were not appreciated for what we had done. It was a long time afterwards that I began to think we should have got some recognition. We didn’t get any money. We were not even allowed to keep our uniforms. I thought that was dreadful." She was one of many that felt the same way.

Recognition


More than 60 years later, when most of the women were in their 80’s, the prime minister, then Gordon Brown, finally presented them with a badge. But to their disappointment the badge bore a wheatsheaf, the emblem of the Women’s Land Army, not a pine tree or a pair of crossed axes the badges they had been so proud to wear during wartime.

After the War


The women went back into traditional roles of clerical and shop work, teaching, domestic service or got married.