Timbertown Girls

Timbertown Girls: Borders women and the First World War

By Chris Brader

Paperback book, 143 pages with black and white illustrations and photographs throughout

This description of the book’s contents is from the book jacket:

In 1916, young women did essential and dangerous war work. They poured into the vast munitions factory at Gretna from all parts of the country. And they also poured out onto the streets, into the pubs and cinemas and, controversially, onto the football fields. Carlisle and Cumberland found themselves at the forefront of social change. The women were emancipated. They did their bit in the war and they got the vote when the war ended. In reality, it wasn’t that simple. Were these young women heroines giving their all for their country or were they living it up at home while the men sacrificed themselves in France? One-time suffragettes joined the police force to control other women. Copperettes faced munitionettes on the streets. In public, women were more visible than they had ever been before. Torn between pre-war and wartime values, it was a time when women and society changed forever.