The Land Girl Covers: September

The magazine editors used the drawings sent in by some individual Land Girls for several issues, which means that we only have one new illustration for the August edition of The Land Girl. The drawing below was first printed on the front cover of the August 1944 edition of the magazine. By September, this was the third month that Patricia O’Toole’s (51097) drawing graced the front pages of The Land Girl.

O’Toole, from Lancashire, has drawn a good representation of the badge of the Women’s Land Army, which acts as a focal point of the drawing in the top right hand corner. Instead of capturing a task (like in earlier editions), O’Toole captures a smiling Land Girl looking away from the landscape. Her hair blowing in the wind, she looks satisfied, likely after a hard day’s work. There appears an element of pride in her expression and her posture appears upright and confident – she is the Land Girl of this issue. Does her signature next to the figure suggest this might be a self-portrait? Was the pride and admiration a reflection of her own feelings of working on the land?