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Posted on 08/05/24 in Culture and Language, For Writers, Uncategorised, Writing

Women’s Land Army Jumper

 

The jumper looked like it had belonged to a child. Rich forest green with a v-neck and distinct ribbing, it was clean and neat as a new school uniform. But the round metal badge on its shoulder told another story. Sporting a crown and a sheaf of wheat, its circular text read ‘Women’s Land Army’. It dated from World War Two.

This particular jumper – or pullover, as it was called at the time – had been worn by a member of the WLA who was posted to a dairy farm at Howgate near Edinburgh. Her name was Jean Russell and her daughter had donated the jumper to the Highland Folk Museum a while ago, after her mother had died.

Last night, 14 of us gathered around the jumper in a workshop for Badenoch’s Storylands Sessions project. It’s part of an exciting new partnership with the Museum, who are bringing out items from their collection as stimuli for our creative writing workshops. Museum curators, Helen Pickles and Liz English, are choosing items that reveal the more hidden or forgotten stories of Highland life. Although Jean Russell was in Midlothian, her experiences echo those of many women in the Highlands during the war, and especially here in Badenoch and Strathspey, where one branch of the WLA – the Women’s Timber Corps – were particularly active.

The workshop began with Helen giving background to the jumper. At the time it was donated, Jean’s daughter couldn’t locate the associated paperwork, but when Helen contacted her again – the day of the workshop – she sent it all through. We got goosebumps when we discovered that it was on this day, exactly 80 years ago – the 7th of May 1944 – that Jean Russell had travelled to the dairy farm and worn her pullover for the first time.

After hearing a bit about her and the WLA and WTC, I got the group writing. We began with short exercises creating a character who might have signed up, then imagining the context she worked in – farm or forest – then crafting a scene with her in that place. The writing could take any form from simple description to a passage of fiction, a drama script or a poem.

After a reviving break of hot drinks and biscuits (probably posher than the land girls or lumberjills would have enjoyed!) we explored further. What other ideas had been evoked? Our own memories, experiences and emotions? What powerful images leapt to mind? Were there other myths, legends or works of art that connected with this, whether in books, paintings, music or screen?

We wrote again, pushing into these broader horizons, then met in pairs to read our work aloud. A fundamental rule in my workshops is that feedback must focus on the positive: what works well? What transports the reader into that experience?

I was blown away by the poem read to me by one of the group, who I hope will share it at one of our Storylands Sessions community shows. Apart from these monthly open mics, we are dreaming dreams with the Highland Folk Museum about other ways of sharing the rich work emerging from these workshops. Watch this space for some kind of exhibition with readings. Cheese and wine was mentioned…

If you’d like to get involved, the workshops are at Am Fasgadh from 6:30-8:30pm on the first Tuesday of every month (except July) and you can book here. No experience necessary and each workshop is standalone.

Click on these links to learn more about the Womens Land Army and the Womens Timber Corps in Scotland.

A regular Storylands Sessions supporter, Sarah Hobbs, has done research on the lumberjills locally and will soon be adding another Strathspey Storywalk looking at the women’s stories and the sites of their camps.

My Sessions colleague, musician Hamish Napier, has produced an award-winning album The Woods, which includes a tune, The March of the Lumberjills, about the Strathspey Womens Timber Corps.

And in my Cairngorms-set novel, Of Stone and Sky, the character Agnes, who is a Highland Traveller, spends WW2 as a lumberjill in the forests of Glenmore.

The Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore is the first outdoor museum in mainland Britain and is open every day from April to October.