Festive News 2017 | Page 13

FESTIVE NEWS • DECEMBER 2016 • PAGE 13 THE STORY OF THE LUMBERJILLS TO RAILWAY STATION TO TOWN HALL SHIRE HALL CATHEDRAL TO COUNTY HOSPITAL Marion Jones is just three years short of her century but she is busy on her computer writing her family history when I pop in to see her at Great Western Court in Hereford. A sprightly lady, she is nevertheless anxious to get the task finished. She had already turned 90 when her first book was published! She was 20 when World War 2 started and working in a bank in Manchester but wanted to do her bit for the war effort. So she volunteered for the Women’s Timber Corps and that first book, ‘Proud to be a Timber Girl’ tells the story of their forestry work getting pit props to the mines and more importantly timber to the trenches at the Front. She and the other girls were sent to the Welsh town of Machynleth for training and Marion settled into digs in a nearby village, Esgairgeiliog, surrounded by forests. But instead of being given an axe the onetime bank clerk was put in charge of the office. Her patriotism was a life changer. She never did get back to the bank in Manchester. Richard Jones who worked in the office at the local slate quarry saw to that. They married a year after the war ended. Richard would ironically become company secretary of the Dovey Woodlands Company and in 1969 the couple moved to Hereford with son Robert when Richard took up a post with the Economic Forestry Group. He died in 1989. History tells us much about the war and the men who fought in it and even the Land Army Girls who worked on the farms, but little has been told about the girls who served the war effort by keeping up the vital supply of timber. Marion with her book and in her smart timber girl uniform Marion’s book, full of facts and anecdotes gives a rare insight into wartime life in the forests .’ Amongst her treasured possessions of a full and active life is a letter from Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother, thanking her for …’your unsparing efforts at a time when the victory of our cause depended on the utmost use of the resources of our land have earned you the country’s gratitude.’ With it is a letter from Prime Minister Gordon Brown who in 2008 finally recognised the contribution of Marion and her fellow timber girls to the war effort on the he Home Front with the award of a special badge. “I am proud of what we achieved for the war effort, but at the same time regret that I played a part in destroying those magnificent ancient broad-leaf forests and after the war replanting them with those awful conifer trees,” said Marion whose memories are a poignant reminder of 6000 young women who ‘went to war with an axe.’ George Thomas