A Very Unusual Second World War Civilian British Empire Medal to a Member of the Women’s Land Army, British Empire medal (Civil) GVIR, 1st issue, engraved naming ‘MISS THELMA ALICE ASHWORTH BIRTWISTLE’ mounted on original bow ribbon. With an original copy of ‘The Land Girl’ magazine dated February 1944 which mentions the recipient.London Gazette 4th January 1944 – The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the British Empire Medal (Civil Division) to the undermentioned: Miss Thelma Birtwistle, Member of the Women’s Land Army, Inglesham, Wiltshire.Born on 23rd August 1921 in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1939 she is a Lady Groom residing at the Lancashire County Institute of Agriculture at Hutton near Preston. She enrolled in the Women’s Land Army (No. 9825) being based on a farm in Wiltshire from October 1939 being a second herdsman to a pedigree herd.She married Aubrey Charles Woolford on 14th August 1963 in Inglesham, Wiltshire. Thelma Woolford died in September 2001 in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.