David writes: Saw a bit in our local paper that they are issuing a badge for the Women’s land army. The new scheme acknowledges the tremendous efforts of the Women’s Land Army by presenting their surviving members with a specially designed badge commemorating their service and acknowledging the debt that the country owes to them.

My mum was in the land army. My mum set me the weight challenge.

She first worked on the very small Merrist Wood farm. The area was in the headlines in 2007 when foot and mouth escaped from laboratories near by. The Guilford College campus is called Merrist Wood campus.

Before the land army, she photographed food at the Lyons Laboratories in Hammersmith, London. She first met my father on the daily train journey to work. They both caught the same train from Woking in the morning 06:50 or the 07:05. He was off to Woolwich where he worked with Standard Telephones. Soon after this he joined the navy.

After a short period at Merrist Wood Farm, she was able to get a move her boyfriend’s brother’s farm which was between Folkestone and Canterbury in Kent. She married the boyfriend – Trevor – after some three years in the land army. He stayed with the Navy all his working life, which included being a lead electrical engineer for the first British nuclear submarine – Dreadnought.