A ROYAL visit marked the opening of a Moray memorial honouring the industry and comradeship of Scotland’s Land Girls.
Prince Charles unveiled a monument on reclaimed farmland at Clochan, near Fochabers, to act as a permanent reminder of how the Women’s Land Army (WLA) worked tirelessly to feed the nation while World War II raged on.
The sculpture, commissioned by the Land Army Memorial Scotland Trust and sited on ground donated by the Crown Estate, shows a group of waving Land Girls ‘united as a team on the gate’ to depict the friendships and camaraderie which developed among those who served.
During the opening ceremony, the Duke of Rothesay said Britain owed a debt of gratitude to the women who did so much for the country when it was under threat during the war.
The event was attended by Moray Land Army veterans like 85-year-old Margaret Donn, a Cullen woman who recalled signing up shortly after leaving school to serve on a farm on the Seafield Estate and as one of the sawmill workers who became known as ‘Lumber Jills’.
Proudly wearing her WLA commemorative medal presented to her in 2007, Mrs Donn – whose maiden name was Runcie – shared some of her greatest memories of serving in the Land Army. She recalled planting trees at the Bin Hill, and how her work in the woodlands nearly cost her a finger and a toe.
“We were trimming some trees one day, and before I knew what I was doing, I was trimming my finger right to the bone,” she said. “I had to wait until I had cycled home before the doctor strapped it up."
See Northern Scot for full story and pictures on Prince Charles' Moray visit.
