Mention the Women's Land Army and most people will know who they were, and that they worked on the farms during the war. Talk of the Women's Timber Corps and the most likely response is Never heard of them. Yet their story is fascinating. The Women's Timber Corps replaced men in the forests and helped to produce timber vital to the war effort. Their living conditions were frequently primitive and, for girls who had worked in shops, offices, hairdressing salons and restaurants, the hardship was daunting. Worst of all was the extreme physical effort required to lay-in, fell, sned and cross-cut the timber; but the girls of the WTC set to with determination to produce pit-props for the mines, telegraph poles for communications, gun-stocks for the troops and even coffins for the casualties of war. There are tales of the social and practical aspects of living in crowded huts, as well as the more technical details of working with axe and saw. The main sentiment shining through their stories is the friendship which has lasted, in some cases, for a lifetime.
The author pays tribute to the achievement of a remarkable group of women, from all walks of life, thrown together by the fortunes of war.