Green Hands by Barbara Whitton #Review #IWMWartimeClassics

 

Today I am delighted to feature another in the recently released Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics Series: Green Hands by Barbara Whitton. This novel which was originally published in 1943, recalls The Land Army.

 
It is 1943, and a month into their service as Land Girls, Bee, Anne and Pauline are dispatched to a remote farm in rural Scotland. Here they are introduced to the realities of 'lending a hand on the land', as back-breaking work and inhospitable weather mean they struggle to keep their spirits high.

Soon one of the girls falters, and Bee and Pauline receive a new posting to a Northumberland dairy farm. Detailing their friendship, daily struggles and romantic intrigues with a lightness of touch, Barbara Whitton's autobiographical novel paints a sometimes funny, sometimes bleak picture of time spent in the Women's Land Army during the Second World War.

"Tales from the home front are always more authentic when written from personal experience, as is the case here. Barbara Whitton evokes the highs and lows, joys and agonies of being a Land Girl in the Second World War." -- Julie Summers

"Witty, warm and hugely endearing, Barbara Whitton s Green Hands is full of engaging characters, burgeoning friendships and pure hard-graft. A lovely novel for anyone interested in wartime Britain, it leaves the reader with renewed admiration for the indefatigable work of the Women s Land Army." --AJ Pearce

My Thoughts

This novel takes a look at life on The Home Front, in rural Britain and follows the lives of three inexperienced recruits to The Land Army. Although the reason for this is sombre, the novel is far from that and the story sparkles with humour and down to earth characters. Bee, Anne and Pauline are sent to parts of the country and out of their comfort zone, set about making the best of things. The farmers they meet are idiosyncratic, with their own dollop of humour and plain speaking. Attempts at romance seem naive, but above all, you feel they depict the flavour of the times. 

    Another interesting aspect of the story is the attitudes which the girls encounter when some doubt whether women and girls are capable of carrying out the heavy, physical tasks which farm work entails. I am not surprised that the novel has an authentic feel, as the author was herself a member of The Land Army and lived the life she depicts. This must add to the slightly affectionate air you feel towards the subject matter.

In short: Life on the land

About the Author

MARGARET HAZEL WATSON (writing under the pseudonym Barbara Whitton) was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1921. She was educated at the Church High Girls School in Newcastle, and later sent to St Leonards School in St Andrews. Due to study Art in Paris, her training was curtailed by the outbreak of the Second World War.

 

Having volunteered for the Women's Land Army (WLA) in 1939, she worked as a Land Girl for around a year before moving to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) and later joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a driver, where she remained for the duration of the war. Her novel Green Hands is a fictionalised account of her time spent as a Land Girl, detailing the back-breaking hard work and intensity of her experience with good humour and an enchanting lightness of touch. During her time with the ATS she met her husband Pat Chitty and they were married in 1941. After the war, she wrote a number of accounts of her wartime experience and retained an interest in art, literature and horticulture throughout her life. She died in 2016.

 

About the Imperial War Museums Wartime Classics series

 
In September 2019, to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, the IWM published the first four titles in a fiction series - the Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics. Patrol is the next in the series.

Alan Jeffreys, (Senior Curator, Second World War, Imperial War Museums) has written an introduction to each book that sets them in context and gives the wider historical background.  He says, ‘researching the Wartime Classics has been one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve worked on in my years at IWM.   It’s been

very exciting rediscovering these fantastic novels and helping to bring them to the wider readership they so deserve’. 

IWM  IWM (Imperial War Museums) tells the story of people who have lived, fought and died in conflicts involving Britain and the Commonwealth since the First World War.

Our unique collections, made up of the everyday and the exceptional, reveal stories of people, places, ideas and events. Using these, we tell vivid personal stories and create powerful physical experiences across our five museums that reflect the realities of war as both a destructive and creative force. We challenge people to look at conflict from different perspectives, enriching their understanding of the causes, course and consequences of war and its impact on people’s lives.

IWM’s five branches which attract over 2.5 million visitors each year are IWM London, IWM’s flagship branch that recently transformed with new, permanent and free First World War Galleries alongside new displays across the iconic Atrium to mark the Centenary of the First World War; IWM North, housed in an iconic award-winning building designed by Daniel Libeskind; IWM Duxford, a world renowned aviation museum and Britain's best preserved wartime airfield; Churchill War Rooms, housed in Churchill’s secret headquarters below Whitehall; and the Second World War cruiser HMS Belfast. 

You can read an extract of From the City, From the Plough here , read an extract from Trial by Battle here , read a review on Plenty Under the Counter here , a guest post on Eight Hours from England here, a review from Patrol here and read an extract from Squadron Airborne here.  

 

  Green Hands by Barbara Whitton is published by IWM and can be ordered here: www.iwmshop.org.uk at the online IWM shop.’ 

 

Thanks to  the Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.

Check out the rest of the tour