COUNTRY LIFE - Mumi the best thing, as it seems
to me, written about women's work during the war, deals with the .part of their work about which least has been said- Incidentally it is dotted "throughout with good natural history, and informed with real zest in the open air. The little half-crovirt volume, printed chiefly for circulation within this company, is the record, told by
a number of individual workers, of the Timber- of the 'Women's Land Army. I found both- the chapters and the illustrations delightful and learnt a deaL For example: the search, chiefly in • Yorkshire forests, for the rare Alder Buckthorn and the difficulty of identifying it, as well as cutting it, peeling it, carrying it and drying it, is a model'of easy narrative ; and it will be news even to many foresters that the bush was in urgent demand for bomb explosives (and perhaps drugs). The young women learnt their birds as well as their botany and woodcraft, and for all its hardship (which was real) exulted in the life. Among some,pleasant verses, one at any rate has a touch of the divine flame. It begins "War that has brought to others fear," and ends with pathetic humour,
What have I done I never meant To be a wartime profiteer!
The real profits of many workers were health and joy.
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