and mona mcleod was one of them.d know that what i did was worth doing. creating food was essential. and we didn‘t starve. file: down on the farm, the land girls are doing their bit, and a bit more! and you should see their calves! i was 17, studying, i thought, to go to cambridge. and i knew nothing about the land army. my father appeared one day and said, "i want to talk to you". and he said, "i believe i have always have done, about the importance of the higher education of women, but first, we should concentrate on winning the war". and so i said, "yes, daddy". and a week later or so, i had left school and i was on the train for scotland. file: the war has taken most of the younger men away from scotland's farms, leaving the farmers without enough help to produce our vital food supplies. they treated me very nicely and it was a dairy farm, about 65 cows. and the first week, i was sent into the dairy. and i was told to hand milk the difficult cows. and i‘m sorry to say that at the end of the week, they‘d all gone

and mona mcleod went on to write a book about her experience as a land girls.ry month on the bbc news channel 01’ every month on the bbc news channel or you every month on the bbc news channel 01’ you can every month on the bbc news channel or you can catch up on all of our films in our online archive, along with our radio programmes. just go to the bbc website and look for witness. in 1977 racing car driver janet guthrie became the first woman to compete in the prestigious indianapolis 500 motivate. she talked to witness about taking part ina male talked to witness about taking part in a male dominated sport. newsreel: raced rivals are a special breed of american folk hero, they have always been men, untiljanet guthrie. i had no house, no husband, knowjulie, no insurance, i had one used up race car. i was playing in a millionaire's sport from the very beginning. and not having been born with a trust fund, i learned how to build my own engines and do my own body work. i thought there was a reasonably good chance that i would be successful at it, because i wa nt