Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 1 (2020), p. 129

This study of the Lumberjills, the Women’s Timber Corps, is clearly a labour of love. Its author Joanna Foat first heard about the Corps while working for the Forestry Commission as a public relations consultant. As she describes, ‘I […] stumbled across their story and it fired up a storm in my belly’ (p. 21). Unable to find very much material to sate her initial curiosity, Foat came to suspect wilful neglect: ‘the government wanted the Women’s Timber Corps to be forgotten, or worse, the women’s contribution was regarded as insignificant’ (p. 15). Foat initially planned to write a fictional account but decided that fictionalizing these women’s war work ‘downplayed the challenges they faced, the stigma they experienced and the incredible advances they made in eroding a view of women as substandard’ (p. 20). This volume seeks to redress the status of the organization as ‘the forgotten army’, and ensure its place in the history of women’s service in the Second World War.

The narrative stems from research conducted at the National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, but the main bulk of the source material of the book stems from veterans of the Force, 22 of whom are thanked personally in the acknowledgments for providing interviews, letters, and personal photographs (including one ‘Lumber Jack’). There are 28 pages of photographs giving many of the names faces, and offering engaging images of the experience of service in the Corps as presented to the camera.

The Women’s Timber Corps was officially formed in England in April 1942, and in Scotland a month later, by which time women had already been working in forestry through the Women’s Land Army with which the corps had an intertwined and somewhat complicated relationship which continued into the twenty first century. In December 2007, reflecting the trickiness of the relationship, the Land Army and the Timber Corps were granted a special badge of honour showing a wheat sheaf, rather than the fir tree or pair of crossed axes worn by the Corps.

Lumberjills is organized in 20 chapters, ending with the First World War precedent for the organization, and including a timeline and bibliography. These chapters offer detailed descriptions of life in service, including joining up, uniforms, living conditions, the range of roles undertaken by the women in the Corps, leisure activities, health implications, and the end and legacy of the force – ‘And I never had lady’s hands, never since’ (Edna Barton, p. 240). The women’s voices are quoted extensively, with a framing narrative providing context and some further primary source evidence outlining the history of the organization. As the author explains, ‘to give these women a voice, I have written the book using their words as much as possible to let their voices shine’ (p. 21). Such an approach allows diversities of experience to accumulate: for example, motivations for joining up included escape from the mundane, from domestic or ‘interior’ jobs, and parental preferences for this occupation, not least as a form of evacuation. What emerges across the chapters is an impressionistic picture of hard physical labour and wide spectrums of experience encompassing camaraderie and loneliness, prejudice and tolerance, commitment and disaffection. Amongst the testimonies are some quirky nuggets: an assumption that the WTC were the Women’s Tank Corps, for example, or the description of the educated measurers as the ‘Airborne Land Army’ ‘because we were above the rest’ (Eileen Mark, p. 99). One anecdote involved a group of fellers arrested wearing cami-knickers, woollen socks and big leather boots, for having ostensibly brought down the telephone lines to Churchill’s war office and suspected of sabotage (p. 63). These narratives are often anecdotal, many reflective, and fragmented between the numerous chapters.

The claims made by the author can be bold: ‘In the 1940s they smashed down what society thought women were physically and mentally capable of, they forced men to rethink what women could achieve, and they proved women could do things differently to men and still succeed’ (p. 20). Most historians of social change would be wary of claiming that preconceptions and gender boundaries had been ‘smashed’ in the Second World War, and oral historians uncomfortable about the concept of ‘giving a voice’. But Foat is transparent about her approach and passion, and is seeking to contribute to the historical record of women’s experiences rather than to the historical theories on gender identities in the Second World War. I write this review listening to Woody Herman’s ‘Woodchopper’s Ball’, his biggest hit first recorded in 1939, because I discovered here that it was the tune often struck up to welcome the girls when members of the WTC entered a dance. ‘Lumberjills’ would be of greatest interest to those interested in the diverse contributions of women to the war effort, in the history of forestry, and those who relish details of the peculiar and the mundane for the insights they offer on lives over experienced over seventy years ago.