Hilda Gibson: Land Girl
returns to our programme tonight. You can hear the interview by clicking on START:
And here is Hilda at Number 10 Downing Street from where she spoke to us.
And this is her new badge: 
If you'd like to hear and read more about Hilda...including her original interview with us in December, click HERE.
This is Hilda at Downing Street with her daughter Stella, who also appears in our interview (and thanks, by the way, to our Westminster colleague Paul Mason for taking the photos.)
There is more from DEFRA here.
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17.29PM
Well hearing Hilda just now - your first interview with her - I am scared now!
And you went back for seconds, Eddie?
Eating crow - eh? Ok. lol
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It was good to hear the feisty and marvellous Hilda getting the recognition she and her fellow land girls so greatly deserve.
I'm not the sentimental sort, but I definitely had damp eyes by the end of the item.
Must be hay fever.
I think I'd sum up my views on recent stories about state honours for pioneering women of a 'certain age' as:
Land girl Hilda: YES!
Margaret Hilda: NO!
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A bit of a contrast on your programme today Eddie between your 2 headline making ladies, Anne Darwin and Hilda Gibson - need I say more?
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Hi,
I am writing a book on the wonderful ladies who risked their lives making munitions in Birmingham, When is somebody going to recognise what they did to save our country, while they were getting showered bombs in a 'D' listed city? The are all in their late 80's early 90's it doesn't take much to say thank you.
Will someone please make some recognition of these valiant 'old gals' before they die????
Thanks
Jean Debney (Dr)
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Was anyone else in tears? I LOVED that interview. What a wonderful woman - the poem just had me in pieces.
My late husband also served in WWII and often sang the praises of the Land Girls. How wonderful they have finally been recognised and what a delightful, lovely, woman. How her daughter read the poem without crying, I just don't know.
Eddie - you were so lovely with her. A true gentleman as befits such a special woman.
Still tearing up (that's like the crying, not the ripping of paper).
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Listening to Hilda's description of the Land Army commemorative badge, I was surprised to hear that it includes the Queen's head.
My husband received his medals in the 1990s, for service in Malaya during the troubles there in 1948, but his medals show King George V head.
Dorothy Fairfield
W.L.A. 1943 - 1946
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Hooray for Hilda !! Make her a Dame !!
And maybe Poet Laureate as well !!
It is great that they are getting these unsung heroes are getting this belated but very well deserved recognition.
I particularly enjoyed a book called 'They Fought in the Fields' by Nicola Tyrer which I would recommend to anyone wanting to know more about this important, but rather overlooked, part of the history of the war.
There is also a book by Stuart Antrobus due out in October. based on the History of the Women's Land army in Bedfordshire, "We Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World" is to be published on 13 October this year by the Book Castle, Dunstable.
Other listeners may know of other books or films etc. which give an insight into the tough life which made such a vital difference to keeping the country fed during the Second World War - so much so they were kept on for a few years after it ended to help keep farms going.
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Hilda also features on the DEFRA website, and it shows the design of the badge in detail.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/working/wla/index.htm
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Hilda, Stella and Eddie - you have made me cry in the kitchen again! What a lovely poem. Thank you, Hilda.
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Today's presentation to the Land Army girls was overdue and was so eloquently explained last year by your interviewee Hilda Gibson.
Eddie's interview with her and her daughter today was wonderful stuff - he acted superbly allowing them both plenty of time to explain their story.
A real coup for the PM programme.
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Thank you Eddie and your Editor for running the interview with Hilda. I was in tears. It was very special radio.
Thank you for not cutting it short. Thank you.
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I will treasure the memory of that interview - not least the thought of Hilary Benn serving tea.
Just as it should be before going back to the day job.
A humilty shown from our current leaders to all those heroic women and men, once in a while from a grateful country.
But as I said above - Hilda's matter of factness about the despatching of those pesky Wabbits! No Elmer Fudd-ge she!
Could he write decent poetry too? I do not think so.
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LordBed (7) Stuart Antrobus is known to us...if you click on the HERE link above, you can find more about him, and a link to his own page.
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Thank you for bringing this to us.
- moving testimony
- loved the poem
- first-rate interview
It is excellent that the Land Girls should receive recognition after all this time, but shameful and tragic that so many of them should have been denied that chance.
I salute them.
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Bravo Hilda. You, and many others are worth far more than Gordon Brown and Hillary Brown.
I have an issue with this.
These land girls and many other made a contribution to the Britain we live in today.
Surely if Gordon Brown and Hillary Benn really respected them, and their contribution they wouldn't be railroading through ideas like unsustainable 'eco towns' and this new legislation allowing councils to stop collecting rubbish from households who they take a dislike to.
It's obvious to me that the government has no handle whatsoever on how much oil is burnt and CO2 created shipping our rubbish to recycled on the other side of the world where it's somehow processed without using energy or creating pollution.
Did the land girls really work for Brown and Benn to turn Great Britain into a facsimile of the former Eastern Bloc on the grounds of saving the planet?
Our forebears fought two world wars so people like Caroline Flint can make it up as they go along?
Land Girls YES!
Draconian Control Freaks that make it up as they go along NO!
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Thanks for that Eddie, I will try and read and review his book when it comes out.
But it seems he has also being done work interviewing Land Girls to provide a record for the Imperial War Museum.
Thanks again to the PM team for making time in a busy news schedule for the Land Girls and their story.
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Wonderful! For 6 years manual work, a medal.
Did you know at 85 its Surf City, two girls for every boy.
Maybe the distribution of work has something to do with it.
The women who worked in munitions production. Ah, there's a different story! My dad was in bomb disposal. He says the Germans were making bombs and bullets designed to kill us.
But nothing was as heroic as the munitions factory workers! (We were so keen our factories should blow up) D'oh.
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It was great to hear the feisty former Land Girl, Hilda, still going strong, and her daughter gave a fabulous reading of the poem.
But what about recognising the contribution of the Trainees too during the war? These were the amazing women volunteers who worked the narrowboats on the inland waterways, from Limehouse Dock to Birmingham and the Coventry coalfields.
Have they been forgotten? What about a special badge for them, Gordon?
Have a look at their stories:
The Amateur Boat Women by Eily "Kit" Gayford
Troubled Waters by Margaret Cornish
Maidens' Trip by Emma Smith
Idle Women by Susan Woolfit
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Thanks for posting the interview here, Eddie, as I missed it "live" due to a work phone call.
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The interview was a rather lachrymose experience... however after listening to the daughter reading the related poem I was partially blinded by tears. This was difficult since I was driving at the time.
maybe the editors should monitor the emotional content of their broadcasts...
Is the warm feeling caused by this a feature of global warming???
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I missed Hilda first time around. Isn't she great? Good interview Eddie.
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Like others, I've had to catch up with Hilda after the programme. She was wonderful the first time you interviewed, and no less so this time round.
Hurrah for the Land Girls! Hurrah for Hilda!
The 'war effort' wasn't restricted to activity on the front, as Dad's Army reminded us. I think there's a whole series out there of stories to tell about women's role in keeping things going during both First and Second World Wars, both on the land, in the factories, and in the home.
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What a wonderful lady. She certainly puts me to shame - so articulate and measured in her responses and attitude. We owe so much to Hilda Green and many others and it is only right that they should be recognised. WE must ALL ensure that their efforts are not forgotten. Her poem was wonderful and so well read by her daughter. BRAVO!!
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Top stuff! They (and we baby-boomers) are disappearing pronto. They weren't the Greatest Generation - they were a generation who did the greatest things.
They're being born now, will be born in a decade's time - Hilda and her like carried an unusual baton with usual grace.
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I was deeply touched by the interview with Hilda, what a lovely lady. Eddie treated her with the profoundest respect and allowed her to shine. What a wonderful writer she is too. My grandmother who was of Hilda's generation recently passed away and I have many, many wonderful stories of her time as a landgirl to keep me company through my own life. We all of us of whatever generation owe the landgirls a great debt of thanks for all that they did during the war. I wouldn't have half the stamina for half the tasks they undertook which they did with good grace and great good humour.
Paul Copson, Nantucket Island, USA.
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What an absolutely excellent interview with Hilda. Edie, you have my profound respect after listening to the way you gently questioned Hilda, and allowed her to respond and explain her thoughts. I had listened to your previous interview with her, and am so pleased that this was followed up. What an articulate and intelligent lady. How her daughter managed to read her mum's peom without breaking down i don't know. I am a 36 yr old guy, and was driving home at the time in tears. My gran was from Hilda's generation, and over the years she had told me about what she had gone through and how she had helped the war effort too. There are clearly many thousands of untold stories out there. How lovely it was that Hilda's has helped to bring more understanding of what went on all those years ago. Bravo to Hilda and all the other "girls".
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Eddie: Can you ask Hilda if she'd agree to have the text of her new poem put here on the Blog? I'm sure many listeners would appreciate being able to read it at their leisure.
You were kind enough to post up an earlier poem of hers, which for the benefit of those who haven't seen it can be found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2007/12/hilda_gibson_2.shtml
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Well done Eddie. Lovely interview with Hilda.
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It would be nice to hear a mention of those women who didn't get any further education, as a result of land girls taking over the colleges. My mum missed out on a degree in agriculture as a result of her college being taken over.
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How about 'I started an illegal war' badge for our current government?
It could be a PM competition to design the badge.
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Great piece.
By contrast, I remember my father complaining about what happened at the outbreak of the war. He worked for a livestock auction house in Scotland, which was collectively owned by farmers. Prior to the war, a number of farmers' sons had worked along with him, but at the outbreak, the rich farmers drew their sons back to work on the farm, so they did not have to take part in the war. What sickened him even more, was that after the war was over, he heard some of the same farmers saying that they would have been happy to have the war go on for much longer - "we hadn't had it so good", was a comment he'd heard.
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