Last Women Standing

The ten women in this book were born between the wars, they grew up in the devil's decade and survived and served in history's most fatal conflict - together they have lived more than 1000 years. Grace added on her age to enter the female army: 'I joined up cos I was lonely. I was a domestic servant at 14 and thought fighting a war had to be better than that.' Welsh Mary didn't have an option: 'it was the factory or the forces, my father wouldn't let me in the military so I was soldering flame flares.' Cast under the shadow of World War II, in a Britain where teenage girls did what they were told, Last Women Standing is a series of deeply personal stories narrated by ten centenarians looking back on young lives defined by service, secrecy and endurance. Manette swapped the Land Army for the Wrens: 'I was followed in Egypt. Because I spoke fluent French they thought I was spy.' Engaged to airman Frank, Robbie worked at Bomber Command HQ: 'we were walking together one evening and he held up his arm - he said 'see that thumb, its killed women and children.'' Wren Officer Mary was working in the run up to D-Day: 'we were sleeping on the floor, there was a lot of adrenalin, we couldn't believe it when they postponed the landings.' Poignant and wry, these exceptional veterans served a war machine initially wary of female service that went on to control and conscript unprecedented numbers of women. Bletchley veteran Hazel extracted herself from the GIs' 'flying fortress - it was not worth a tin of fruit', Robbie recalls free sanitary towels: 'the girls polished the barrack floor with them' and 'Lumberjill' Hannah 'starting drinking in Gloucestershire - the pub was the only entertainment. They didn't like us Londoners'. Today, in a world surrounded by numerous existential threats, their collective voice, curated by award-winning historian Dr Tessa Dunlop, is a powerful reminder that against the odds, a generation of marginalised young women rose to the challenge when Great Britain was fighting for its life. Theirs is an extraordinary story of survival, both then and now.