Britain's Land Girls
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2017
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Around 80 thousand women and girls volunteered to join the Women's Land Army during the Second World War. They helped provide vital food supplies to a country under siege. Kirsty Reid has spoken to Mona McLeod who was just 17 years old when she started working 6 days a week on a farm in Scotland. Mona has written a book about her experiences: 'A Land Girl's Tale'.
Photo: Land girls carrying bundles of straw in 1941. (Credit: Maeers/Fox Photos/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:40.9 | My name's Linda Davies and I commissioned |
| 0:43.0 | podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:45.0 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality, |
| 0:49.0 | featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:54.4 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 1:00.9 | poltergeist, cricket and conspiracy theories, and that's just a few examples. |
| 1:06.4 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over |
| 1:11.1 | at BBC Sounds. You're listening to the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service, history as told by the people who were there. |
| 1:19.0 | I'm Kirsty Reed and today I'm taking you back to World War II when Britain, |
| 1:24.7 | blockaded by Hitler's Navy, was in danger of running out of food. |
| 1:29.2 | I've been speaking to Mona McLeod who signed up for the Women's Land Army and worked six days |
| 1:35.7 | a week for the next five years to grow vital crops for a country under siege. |
| 1:42.4 | I can look back on the war and know that what I did was worth doing |
| 1:47.0 | and made a contribution however minor to the war effort. Creating food was essential and we didn't starve, which is what |
... |
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