Women's Land Army to grow in stature with £60,000 memorial

A MEMORIAL is to be erected in memory of the efforts of the Women's Land Army during the Second World War.

Making the announcement, NFU Scotland president Jim McLaren, whose mother belonged to the WLA, also indicated the launch of a fundraising bid.

McLaren is part of a steering group which aims to raise the 60,000 needed for the memorial over the next 12 months. The steering group also contains representatives from the National Museum of Rural Life, NFU Mutual, the Scottish Farmer and the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes.

It is expected that fundraising will now begin in earnest following the offer of a site by the Crown Estate.

McLaren said: "It is vital that we remember the contribution to the war effort by this group of women who volunteered to work so hard to put food on the nation's tables at such a difficult time.

"The work they undertook was laborious, they were often ill- equipped, cold and lonely and, regrettably, their work has often been overlooked because they were volunteer workers rather than conscripted."