Recent Sermons
"A SERVICE OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE WORK OF THE WOMEN’S LAND ARMY AND WOMEN’S TIMBER CORP"
It ‘s taken our country an unconscionably long time to honour and give awards to the women of the Women’s Land Army and Women’s Timber Corps, the ‘Land Girls’ and ‘Timber Jills’ as we have come to know them, and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that we’re delighted to be gathering here today, as some did at Malmesbury Abbey last Sunday, to celebrate those women who made Wiltshire proud of their efforts all those years ago.
In this Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Salisbury we’ve done a little better because the Women’s Land Army at least appears in one of our memorial windows. In the north nave aisle to my right there’s a window commemorating the citizens of Salisbury who died in the Second World War. In Christopher Webb’s design of 1949 the arms of the diocese and the city are there, with figures representing every branch of the armed and civil services. On the left there’s the Angel Gabriel with figures from the three branches of the armed services, with representatives of the Fire Service, Home Guard and Civil Defence; on the right, St. George rides above representatives of the Women’s services.
I give each and every one of you who served in these services to tell your grandchildren that you were the model for a window in Salisbury Cathedral and I hope is duly impresses them!
We gather here today to rejoice that each of you Land Girls and Timber Jills have been recognised for what you achieved in those threatening days of war. Someone once said that God is in the facts and the facts here speak for themselves. In one month alone in 1942 275 grain ships bringing supplies to this island nation were sunk by U-boats. In the same year 100,000 agricultural workers were conscripted into the armed forces. Two million acres of grassland had to be put to the plough if the country was to avoid the situation in 1917 when the harvests failed and it’s said we were three weeks away from universal famine. The common task to keep Britain fed was known as the ‘Battle for Wheat’ and it was a battle won in large part because of the determined character, uncomplaining self-sacrifice and ample good humour of women, many of whom were teenagers, most of whom were far from home and the comforts that young women take for granted in times of peace.
We rejoice in what you achieved. We also admire the new skills which you made your own. Some of you may have known Wiltshire as your home but a third of those who volunteered originally came from urban lives in London or the North of England. Few had ever worked the land and although to my eyes the uniform of corduroy breeches, knee length fawn socks and the felt porkpie style-hat looks rather dapper I guess it spoke of an outdoor and rougher life than many of you had ever experienced before. But by the time the servicemen began to return, once the war ended, it was these women who were then the experts in how to operate the machinery which had been introduced diplomatically in the years the men had been away. Perhaps you remember moments when the returning men had to be introduced not only to your expertise but your new sense of self-respect.
Not only had you achieved great things, acquired new skills but much changed because of your presence in our rural communities. Reading the stories of women in both the Land Army and Timber Corps I’m struck that amidst the very happy memories of comradeship, cheerfulness and romance the words which also keep appearing are of a harsher reality: of scorn, suspicion, loneliness and even derision. The rewards were certainly not material, some employers could only be described as prejudiced and mean-spirited, and after it was done many of the women faced unemployment but with none of the demobilisation support given to other services. Such was the treatment of these women that the indomitable Lady Denman resigned as Director of the Women’s Land Army in protest.
Yet you did something which is a priceless legacy in the social history of our land, you changed the minds and assumptions of those who worked alongside you and you prepared the ground for a generation of women yet to be born. It’s no exaggeration to say that what you, and the women who like you kept the nation going economically during the First World War, what you did was to change the world. Yes you helped win a war but you also opened the gates of opportunity for my generation. Not long ago one of the children of our congregation asked me with all seriousness: ‘June, is it possible for a man to be a dean?’ I was amused by her innocence but it reminds me of how so much of the lives of individuals are shaped by our perceptions and expectations. You did things which in 1939 didn’t seem ‘lady like’ just as I’m now doing things which only men have done in this place since 1258. Our daughters and sons owe a very great debt of gratitude to you for without you I suspect their world would be bound by expectations which serve none of them very well.
As well as making your impact on our social history though you also gave testimony to the two deeply Christian qualities which our society still needs and which we heard about in our two readings.
Firstly there’s the never-ending battle against injustice. Whoever chose that lovely passage from Isaiah I think must have had their tongue in their cheek because as you heard it’s all about ‘fasting’, about rationing the food we eat, though here it was for religious purposes. God says to us that in ordering our life what really pleases him is that we loose the bonds of injustice, share our bread with the hungry and protect the homeless and those without protection. Our destiny is tied up with theirs. Just as you joined the forces which strived to defeat fascism and tyranny in Europe so let’s continue to raise our voices against injustice around the globe today.
And in our New Testament lesson we heard that description of how Jesus Christ emptied himself, sacrificed all his rights and privileges for the sake of our rescue. Thus that self-emptying in order to serve the needs of others is right at the core of our claim to follow in the Christian way. You who have received your awards in this last year have given us an example and a story of just that, self-offering for a greater good than just our own comforts.
I’d like to finish by doing two things. One is to encourage all of you to apply what we’re celebrating today to the conditions we are facing in our society. In some ways you could say we face a new ‘war’: not against a military aggressor but against on the one hand financial turmoil but also a form of spiritual ‘famine’. Most of us in this country have enjoyed until quite recently the kind of material prosperity which the rural communities of Wiltshire wouldn’t even have imagined in the 1940’s. And yet we also live in a time of great social pessimism, of distrust in our institutions and leaders, and growing cynicism about the values associated with those institutions such as duty, thrift, temperance virtue and patience. To paraphrase the economic historian Avner Offer:
“Affluence has bred in us impatience, and impatience has undermined our well being.”
We may be twice as rich as the communities which these women joined during the war years in Wiltshire and beyond but we’re certainly not twice as content. So let me urge on us the same things which these women knew and to which they gladly gave their freedom and their comforts: the battle against injustice and the self-offering of our lives for a greater good.
And to finish with, and I hope this won’t embarrass you, I would ask all the women who served in the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Timber Corps to stand if you can and because these good women laboured for our freedoms and comforts please would you applaud them?
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In this Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Salisbury we’ve done a little better because the Women’s Land Army at least appears in one of our memorial windows. In the north nave aisle to my right there’s a window commemorating the citizens of Salisbury who died in the Second World War. In Christopher Webb’s design of 1949 the arms of the diocese and the city are there, with figures representing every branch of the armed and civil services. On the left there’s the Angel Gabriel with figures from the three branches of the armed services, with representatives of the Fire Service, Home Guard and Civil Defence; on the right, St. George rides above representatives of the Women’s services.
I give each and every one of you who served in these services to tell your grandchildren that you were the model for a window in Salisbury Cathedral and I hope is duly impresses them!
We gather here today to rejoice that each of you Land Girls and Timber Jills have been recognised for what you achieved in those threatening days of war. Someone once said that God is in the facts and the facts here speak for themselves. In one month alone in 1942 275 grain ships bringing supplies to this island nation were sunk by U-boats. In the same year 100,000 agricultural workers were conscripted into the armed forces. Two million acres of grassland had to be put to the plough if the country was to avoid the situation in 1917 when the harvests failed and it’s said we were three weeks away from universal famine. The common task to keep Britain fed was known as the ‘Battle for Wheat’ and it was a battle won in large part because of the determined character, uncomplaining self-sacrifice and ample good humour of women, many of whom were teenagers, most of whom were far from home and the comforts that young women take for granted in times of peace.
We rejoice in what you achieved. We also admire the new skills which you made your own. Some of you may have known Wiltshire as your home but a third of those who volunteered originally came from urban lives in London or the North of England. Few had ever worked the land and although to my eyes the uniform of corduroy breeches, knee length fawn socks and the felt porkpie style-hat looks rather dapper I guess it spoke of an outdoor and rougher life than many of you had ever experienced before. But by the time the servicemen began to return, once the war ended, it was these women who were then the experts in how to operate the machinery which had been introduced diplomatically in the years the men had been away. Perhaps you remember moments when the returning men had to be introduced not only to your expertise but your new sense of self-respect.
Not only had you achieved great things, acquired new skills but much changed because of your presence in our rural communities. Reading the stories of women in both the Land Army and Timber Corps I’m struck that amidst the very happy memories of comradeship, cheerfulness and romance the words which also keep appearing are of a harsher reality: of scorn, suspicion, loneliness and even derision. The rewards were certainly not material, some employers could only be described as prejudiced and mean-spirited, and after it was done many of the women faced unemployment but with none of the demobilisation support given to other services. Such was the treatment of these women that the indomitable Lady Denman resigned as Director of the Women’s Land Army in protest.
Yet you did something which is a priceless legacy in the social history of our land, you changed the minds and assumptions of those who worked alongside you and you prepared the ground for a generation of women yet to be born. It’s no exaggeration to say that what you, and the women who like you kept the nation going economically during the First World War, what you did was to change the world. Yes you helped win a war but you also opened the gates of opportunity for my generation. Not long ago one of the children of our congregation asked me with all seriousness: ‘June, is it possible for a man to be a dean?’ I was amused by her innocence but it reminds me of how so much of the lives of individuals are shaped by our perceptions and expectations. You did things which in 1939 didn’t seem ‘lady like’ just as I’m now doing things which only men have done in this place since 1258. Our daughters and sons owe a very great debt of gratitude to you for without you I suspect their world would be bound by expectations which serve none of them very well.
As well as making your impact on our social history though you also gave testimony to the two deeply Christian qualities which our society still needs and which we heard about in our two readings.
Firstly there’s the never-ending battle against injustice. Whoever chose that lovely passage from Isaiah I think must have had their tongue in their cheek because as you heard it’s all about ‘fasting’, about rationing the food we eat, though here it was for religious purposes. God says to us that in ordering our life what really pleases him is that we loose the bonds of injustice, share our bread with the hungry and protect the homeless and those without protection. Our destiny is tied up with theirs. Just as you joined the forces which strived to defeat fascism and tyranny in Europe so let’s continue to raise our voices against injustice around the globe today.
And in our New Testament lesson we heard that description of how Jesus Christ emptied himself, sacrificed all his rights and privileges for the sake of our rescue. Thus that self-emptying in order to serve the needs of others is right at the core of our claim to follow in the Christian way. You who have received your awards in this last year have given us an example and a story of just that, self-offering for a greater good than just our own comforts.
I’d like to finish by doing two things. One is to encourage all of you to apply what we’re celebrating today to the conditions we are facing in our society. In some ways you could say we face a new ‘war’: not against a military aggressor but against on the one hand financial turmoil but also a form of spiritual ‘famine’. Most of us in this country have enjoyed until quite recently the kind of material prosperity which the rural communities of Wiltshire wouldn’t even have imagined in the 1940’s. And yet we also live in a time of great social pessimism, of distrust in our institutions and leaders, and growing cynicism about the values associated with those institutions such as duty, thrift, temperance virtue and patience. To paraphrase the economic historian Avner Offer:
“Affluence has bred in us impatience, and impatience has undermined our well being.”
We may be twice as rich as the communities which these women joined during the war years in Wiltshire and beyond but we’re certainly not twice as content. So let me urge on us the same things which these women knew and to which they gladly gave their freedom and their comforts: the battle against injustice and the self-offering of our lives for a greater good.
And to finish with, and I hope this won’t embarrass you, I would ask all the women who served in the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Timber Corps to stand if you can and because these good women laboured for our freedoms and comforts please would you applaud them?