My late mother, Edna Barton (seen here on left in her Women’s Timber Corps Uniform). Her maiden name was Harris (but was widowed previously so also known as Edna Packwood).
From her service record, I discovered:-
1. She joined the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in 1942.
2. She was transferred to the Women’s Timber Corps (WTC) 28.1.1943
3. She left shortly after her basic Timber Corps training 23.4.1943. Her training took place at the training camp in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
It has always been a mystery why she left and what she did afterward, that is before she met and married my father in late 1945.
Is there anybody out there who can throw any light on this matter in any way at all?
Any information on the Women’s Timber Corps in Bury St Edmunds would be great?
I was asked by the Forestry Commission to help with filming a small piece for BBC local news about ‘lumber-jills’.
During WW2 my mother, like many others, did war service. Not for her the noisy, dirty munitions factory, and there were many of those in industrial Birmingham where she lived. No. For her the choice was the open countryside, following what her forbears had done for centuries in the fields of Warwickshire.
Lumber Jills at their training camp 1943. Edna is at far end in the centre
She joined up in 1942 after her husband of only a few months was killed in a freak accident at their home. In 1943, after first being in the Land Army, she transferred to the Womens Timber corps; the “lumber-jills”.
After initial training in Bury St Edmunds she worked with teams of others in forests and woodlands including on a private estate in Coventry.
The work was arduous; felling trees by hand using an axe and a hand saws. Not for them the benefits of chainsaws. (chainsaws were not invented until the 50’s). Nor for them the benefits of massive machines like today to remove trees from the woods. It was all done by hand and real horse power.
Lumber jills at their training camp. Edna is front row far right. The girl front row far left is carrying the same saw we used yesterday.
Times were tough. They lived in huts in the woods heated by wood burning stoves. Those were handy to dry off the clothes, wet from the day before. No matter the weather they worked, felling and removing trees from 7am until 5pm most days. Rain or snow, it didn’t matter; It was for the war effort.
I spotted a small piece in the local paper about the Forestry Commission looking for people who were once lumber-jills. I sent them a couple of pictures my mother kept from those days. From there my mother, Edna, was interviewed by the Mail on Sunday for an article they were doing on women working in the forests.
The BBC local news have produced a piece to go out next week on lumber-jills working in the woodlands around Lincolnshire. They interviewed another lumber-jill, also called Edna, and they asked if I would help them with some filming in local woodland.
BBC journalist and Forestry Commission staff on the cross cut saw.
I didn’t know that “help” involved being the other end of a cross cut saw to a Forestry Commission ranger, and the 2 of us were going to cut a log. We did this cutting whilst being filmed and I’m glad they turned to the girl Ranger first to ask her questions as I couldn’t speak!
I have new found respect for what my mother and her colleagues did. 5 minutes and I was wrecked but then I am an old fart. Perhaps as a young man it wouldn’t have troubled me so much.
I then had to do a piece to camera and some shots of me looking at pictures. It was all a bit daunting and embarrassing. You feel such a Muppet.
Well it only took 63 years but today my mother got the recognition she deserved.
During the war my mother was called up to do her bit for the country. She joined the Land Army. To be more accurate she joined the Timber Corps. Lots of young women were asked to chop down trees for pit props and the like; a job previously done by their men folk.
She and other girls were packed off to Bury St Edmunds to be trained in the art of felling trees with axes as well as cross cut and bow saws. They were a hardy lot. Freezing cold huts in the winter, chopping down the trees with manual labour ( no that’s not a Cuban middle weight) – no chain saws for them and carrying the trees out of the forests by hand. She said they were great times.
Today, 63 years after the war, the women of the Land Army and the Timber Corps finally got their medal; I say ‘medal’ more a badge really. It has a pin on the back and no ribbon.
My mother’s arrived in the post, together with a letter of thanks supposedly signed by Gordon Brown – or should I say ‘Carlos Bang’ , because that is what it looks like. Come on Gordon, get an adults signature. And dont do it with a crushed fibre tip pen either. Get some style man!
It’s a shame he couldn’t spend the time signing these himself though – no matter how badly. It looks like it was done by a machine – shows how much the effort of that generation is really valued.
I will be presenting it to her this weekend. Knowing my mother, she wont be impressed but then at 88 she has seen most things in life so it takes a lot to impress her. Certainly I never have.
Bramblings 