Pat Peters and her Land Girl comrades worked as hard as any man, clearing stones, pulling thistles and cutting broccoli on freezing cold mornings. For this gang of high-spirited young London girls, suddenly transported to rural Cornwall in the 1940s, it was the unending potato harvest that they most disliked.

Once the boredom set in they constantly looked for ways to avoid work. They hid in the corn crop plucking their eyebrows, writing letters, or even darning socks.

The girls’ antics and the reaction of the farmers is memorably recorded: ‘“Get the ‘ell away. What do ‘ee think you’re playing at? Bloody land girls!” He looked straight at me. “Get the ‘ell out of ‘ere before the sows drop their young ’uns.”’

Some of the girls rebelled and returned to city life. Others made the most of the dances and the visiting Yanks and even, like Pat, settled down in Cornwall as a farmer’s wife.