Why join? - Women's Land Army

FOR A HEALTHY, HAPPY JOB - JOIN THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (Art.IWM PST 6078) image: a young woman, wearing the Land Army uniform, stands with a pitchfork in her left hand and holds her jacket in her right. She surveys a field of wheat. Copyright: � IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/36790 — Women’s Land Army Recruitment poster, designed by Clive Uppton.
Source: (Art.IWM PST 6078)

The government slogan advertising the WLA was ‘For a healthy, happy job, join the Women’s Land Army’. But why did women join the WLA?

Below are a list of the some of reasons which influenced women to join the Land Army:

To avoid working in munitions
It allowed girls to volunteer at the age of 17 ½, a lower age compared to the other services
Parental influence that the Women’s Land Army was ‘better’ than the other services
Enrolling on impulse – wanting a spontaneous change from their daily life
Farms in the nearby area were in need of volunteers
Failing the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air force) medical test
An alternative to joining the women’s fighting services
It was the least regimented of the other forms of women’s war work and the most different
It suited women’s individual character traits – some women preferred working, or the idea of working, in the outdoors
A sense of independence and escaping their current life and relationships
The uniform; yes, this is true, some joined because they liked the uniform so much. Unlike the other women’s services uniforms, women could wear breeches!

Despite being willing volunteers, some were apprehensive about leaving a stable and reliable job which there was no guarantee they could return to after the war.

In The Archives

Excerpt from 'The Land Girl', October 1944 — Excerpt from ‘The Land Girl’, October 1944

'The Call Of The Land' - a recruitment poem written by Gordon Geddes, based at St Andrew's House in Scotland. Source: The Land Girl, April 1942 — ‘The Call Of The Land’ – a recruitment poem written by Gordon Geddes, based at St Andrew’s House in Scotland.
Source: ‘The Land Girl’, April 1942

Find out more

Want to listen to an interview with a Land Girl on why she joined the Women’s Land Army? Click here to listen to Women’s Land Army historian, Stuart Antrobus, interviewing Joyce Ingle (nee Irving)
Want to find out more about why women chose to join the Women’s Land Army ? Read ‘Going Back to the Land’: Rhetoric and Reality in Women’s Land Army memories by Alison Woodeson.

References

Mant, Joan. All Muck No Medals: Landgirls by Landgirls. Leicester: Book Guild Publishing Ltd, 1994.