This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
A complaint about the inequitable treatment of the 'Land Girls' in the New Statesman and Nation:
I worked for a timber firm in Devon, ina job previously held by a man, and my successor has just been demobbed from the RAF. When I left Devon I was given a travel voucher to Heysham, and then had to pay my steamer fare to Belfast, £1 14s., as the Land Army only gives vouchers for travel in England and Wales. I had 29 days between leaving the WLA and starting my new job, so I applied for unemployment benefit. At the end of three weeks I was given £1 5s. 6d. which did not cover the cost of my steamer ticket, much less provide a livelihood for three weeks. Had I been a member of any other of the women's services, I would have had my fare home and 56 days' leave.
On demobilisation, members of the Land Army, many of whom have done arduous work for five years, get no gratuity, no paid leave, no grant for clothing, no extra clothing coupons. They have to return their uniform, for which they have surrendered coupons, and which is unsuitable for ordinary wear in any case. The girls in the WLA have worked hard, often far from their own homes, in isolated places and in all weathers, with six days' leave a year. Is their contribution to the war effort of so little value that they deserve no recognition? It must be so ...
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