October Poem of the Month

Do you remember?

Do you remember back in 1939
When England went to war,
And the girls all joined the Forces
Like ATS, WAAFs, WRENS and the nursing corps?

The girls that I remember best
Are the girls who worked on the land,
The girls of the Woman’s Land Army:
Oh! What a gallant band.

Do you remember how we rose at dawn,
While the rest of the world was asleep,
And went to milk those blinking cows
Or tend those wretched sheep?

And how about those winter days
In the wind and the rain and the hail,
Pulling the mangolds and sugar beet
And cutting the frozen kale?

But do you remember the fun we had
And how many friends we made,
The songs that we sang, and the jokes that we shared?
Those memories will never fade.

But that’s been over for many a year,
And I know every Land Army member
Looks back with pride and nostalgia and says:
“Those are the days I remember”.

by Alice Everingham.