THEIR back-breaking work and steely optimism were vital to Britain’s Second World War effort. And 64 years after Germany’s surrender, two former Land Girls from Oxfordshire are to be personally thanked by The Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Joan Clifford, 88, of Sutton Courtenay, and Helen Dann, of Chinnor, will join Land Girls from across Britain for the ceremony on October 21, which follows lunch at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Mrs Clifford, a great-grandmother, left her London office job for life on an Oxfordshire farm during the war. She was called up in 1942 and was sent on a training course in Sparsholt to learn about life on the land. She was then posted to a farm near Banbury. Mrs Clifford, of Harwell Road, said: “Forget about what you see on television or in films – being a Land Girl meant working very hard from dawn to dusk, every day. “We were a very important part of the war effort and it seems incredible we were all doing jobs we’d never done before in our lives. Very few of us were used to that type of labour. “It was really very hard and frightening at times, especially when the bull got out and the pigs escaped, but we also had a lot of fun. “One time, I was out in the field hoeing and it rained so I borrowed the coat from a scarecrow in a nearby field. I put it back when it stopped.” Mrs Clifford, who is taking husband Arthur to the ceremony, said: “We are both very excited, it should be a wonderful day. “It will be lovely to meet up with all the other Land Girls. We’re all in our eighties now, so we don’t always have the opportunity.” Mrs Dann, of Orchard Way, was a Land Girl in Leicestershire. She moved to Chinnor to be near her daughter 15 years ago. She said: “My five years in the Land Army were some of the happiest times of my life. “I also learned lots of new skills, like how to thatch. “I can still remember everything I did like yesterday. Some of us took to it immediately, but it took others a bit more time. “There was one girl who never took off her gloves she was worried about her nails, even though we were working in a field. “It was very hard work for all of us and it feels nice to know we made a big contribution to the war effort. The one thing I could never get used to was waking up at the crack of dawn.” Mrs Dann added: “I am very excited about the garden party. I was really taken by surprise when I got the invitation.”