The Canary Girls

Yellow poppies  at a talk on one woman's  mission to get a memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum  dedicated to the munitions workers in WWI and WWII.  It seems that at the beginning of WWI we had about 6 months of munitions but that was OK because the war would be over by Christmas wouldn't it?  But then they started to run out and were rationing the soldiers in the trenches to 3  or 4 bullets a day. Women were drafted in their hundreds and thousands as an emergency to work in the munitions factories that had been deserted by the young men off to war. They were told it was "safe!  However loading a shell with explosive and a detonator was not safe, many lost their hands or were blinded , maimed or killed.  The girls went a strange yellow colour as a result  of the effects of working with TNT. You can read more effects in the extra - a picture from of the displays at the very interesting talk.  In WWII of course the munitions factories were targets for German bombs.  The Land Girls have a memorial but the munitions workers do not ,despite doing vital war work in very unsafe conditions that caused many to die as a result.  Sandra Gold-Wood in Sedbergh is the woman behind the campaign and the website she has set up to raise awareness is here