Thursday 8 June 2017

Vita Sackville-West's history of Women's Land Army

Am reading Nigel Nicolson's Portrait of a Marriage - and there are unexpected revelations about World War One.

His mother (the writer and renowned gardener) Vita Sackville-West is bowled over with excitement in April 1918 on discovering the clothes worn by women in the Land Army.

They are liberating - and open new doors and horizons for her....She later wrote to her very close friend Violet Trefusis:

"I had just got clothes like the women-on-the-land were wearing, and in the unaccustomed freedom of breeches and gaiters I went into wild spirits; I ran, I shouted, I jumped, I climbed, I vaulted over gates, I felt like a school boy let out on a holiday....."

Later she was to write a history of the Women's Land Army. World War One changed society - and life - for women generally.




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