Found at the London 2016 May Ephemera Fair – an issue of this magazine – THE LAND GIRL. (NO. 7. VOLUME 2, OCTOBER 1941.) This was issued by the Women’s Land Army The first article is an encouraging piece aimed at the new Land Girl, who possibly for the first time, will be meeting other girls from far flung parts of Britain and the British Commonwealth.
On Being Strange.
At this time of year many members of the Land Army are working far from their homes. In particular, girls who are threshing and potato lifting have come long distances, and many others have undertaken particular jobs in counties they have never visited before.
This offers a grand opportunity to break down prejudices which have survived from the times (little more than a hundred years ago) when it took many days of laborious travel to traverse this island and the vast majority of people never left their own county throughout their lives. But prejudice dies hard, and in many counties people who have lived in them for less than ten years are still called “foreigners.”
It is the right spirit which makes girls volunteer to go where they are most needed – once they have got there it is very important that they should stay, for they are needed, and a failure to stick it out means a great deal of trouble and wasted time and money, neither of which can be afforded nowadays. Home-sickness is almost inevitable, but it does not last, and a determination to be interested in new places and different people will help it to pass quickly.
The greatest opportunity to help the “foreigners” lies with the members of the Land Army. Now that there are 18,000 volunteers there can’t be many areas where some don’t exist. If you see another Land Girl, conquer that shyness natural to all Britons and risk a greeting – you may be the one bright spot in an otherwise dreary world. If she is a stranger far from home, see that she no longer feels friendless and apart, and perhaps it will be thanks to you that she stays just where she is most badly wanted, doing a job from which she can’t be spared.