To listen to audio extracts from this title click on the audio players below.

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War Girls is a commemoration and celebration of the remarkable, often deeply moving and largely unsung experiences of women in the First World War, told in their own words. Through poetry, journals and letters this audio book  documents the contribution made by women from all walks of society - from campaigning for peace to working on the home front and in the services. Some are the writings of established poets and novelists but many more are the records of ordinary women living in extraordinary times. They detail not only personal hardship and suffering, but also the joy and excitement of a new society emerging as the war brought women challenges, freedoms and possibilities previously unknown to them. A century on, their experiences are still as compelling, powerful and relevant as they were at the time.

 Ruth Sillers  has performed in many plays and musicals for theatres in London's West End, notably the National Theatre Studio, the Young Vic Theatre and the Royal Opera House. Her television experience includes playing Mary Queen of Scots for BBC History. Her radio credits include many plays and readings for BBC Radio Drama such as 'Medical Detectives', 'Easy Virtue' and 'The Professor' and 'Poetry Please' for Radio 4. She has recorded numerous audio books for BBC Audiobooks and many other publishers. Recent recordings include classic short stories by Jane Austen, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf and Rosie Alison's 'The Very Thought of You', nominated for the Orange Prize.

Other voices: Dee Palmer and Michael Bartlett

The piano is played by Bill Byrne, lawyer, teacher, civil servant, singer and some time keeper of chickens.  As a self-taught pianist, he plays entirely for his own pleasure and that of his large and long-suffering family.  

To listen an interview with Ruth Sillers about War Girls and how she chose the material, click on the audio player below.

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The Interview On Line:  This interview was conducted by Nicola Barranger. To hear more interviews that Nicola has done with writers go to http://www.theinterviewonline.co.uk/

Full List of Contents

Track 1:   Outbreak Of War

• Field Hospital and Flying Column – Violet Thurston
• International Manifesto of Woman – Manchester Guardian 1^st August 1914
• Joining the Colours – Katharine Tynan
• Towards a Permanent Peace – Helena Swanwick, Labour Leader 29^th April 1915
• The Jingo Woman – Helen Hamilton

Track 2:   First Casualties

• Reported Missing – Anna Gordon Keown. Used by kind permission of Jennifer Gosse.
• Diary 1914 – Sarah Macnaughton
• June 1915  - Charlotte Mew
• Journal 1915, Paris – Katherine Mansfield
• The Wykhamist – Nora Griffiths

Track 3:   War Girls

• Home Service Corps Review 4^th January 1916 – Phyllis Lovell. Used by kind permission of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum
• War Girls – Jessie Pope
• Meeting the Great Emergency – E. Sylvia Pankhurst. Used by kind permission of Richard Pankhurst
• Extract from Women Worker February 1916
• Munition Wages – Madeline Ida Bedford
• A Factory Explosion 1917 – Olive May Taylor. The papers of Olive May Taylor are held in the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum
• Great Appeal for Land Workers – Daily News and Leader 15^th February 1916
• Home Service Corps Review 15^th October 1916 - Work on a Farm, extracts from a letter by Miss Dorothy Chalmers. Used by kind permission of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum

Track 4:   The Horror Of War

• The Dancers – Edith Sitwell (© Edith Sitwell) is reproduced by permission of PFD (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Edith Sitwell
• The Broken Soldier – Katharine Tynan
• The Worst Job from A Woman At War – Maude Onions
• The Deserter – Winifred M. Letts

Track 5:   In The Services

• Recollections of life as a WAAC Private – Olive May Taylor. The papers of Olive May Taylor are held in the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum
• After Bourlon Wood – Helen Dircks
• Intelligence Work for MI5 – Mrs D.B.G. Line née Dimmock. The papers of Mrs D.B.G. Line are held in the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum
• The VAD Scullery Maid’s Song – M. Winifred Wedgwood
• Night Duty – Eva Dobell

Track 6:   The Home Front

• A War Film – Teresa Hooley
• Memories of Rationing – Alice Connor née Kedge. Used by kind permission of Joyce Marlow
• Invitation Au Festin – Aelfrida Tillyard
• In A Restaurant 1917 – Eleanour Norton
• A Zeppelin Shot Down – from a letter by Muriel Dayrell-Browning
• Zeppelins – Nancy Cunard. Used by kind permission of Robert Bell, Nancy Cunard’s Literary Executor
• Extract from Lilian Baylis: The Lady of the Old Vic – Richard Findlater. Used by kind permission of Angela Findlater

Track 7:   Last Casualties

• Last Leave – Eileen Newton
• Lamplight – May Wedderburn Cannan
• Armistice Day In London – Alice Connor née Kedge. Used by kind permission of Joyce Marlow

Track 8:   Returning Home

• Ambulance Train 30 - Carola Oman. Used by kind permission of Sir Roy Strong
• Diary 1918, London - Virginia Woolf
• The Cenotaph – Charlotte Mew
• To Tony (Aged 3) (In Memory T.P.C.W) – Marjorie Wilson

Track 9:   Epitaph

• There Will Come Soft Rains – Sara Teasdale

MUSIC

• Let The Great Big World Keep Turning
• If You Were The Only Girl In The World
• Oh, Oh, Antonio
• After The Ball
• The Rose Of No Man’s Land
• Keep The Home Fires Burning
• Roses of Picardy
• Till We Meet Again

Acknowledgements

Some of the material on this CD can be found in the following books:

Scars Upon My Heart – Selected by Catherine W. Reilly

Published by Virago Press Ltd  (09/02/2006)  ISBN:  9781844082254

Women and the Great War – Edited by Joyce Marlow

Published by Virago Press (04/11/99)  ISBN:  ISBN:  9781860495595

We are grateful to the many copyright holders for permission to use this material. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders. If any have inadvertently been omitted then please contact Crimson Cats.