War heroines remembered for first time

At the Cenotaph on Sunday will be representatives from all of the armed forces and those who worked night and day for the war effort such as the Land Army and the Home Guard.

But this year, for the first time, they will be joined by a group of women hitherto almost forgotten.

A warm welcome was given for some special visitors to the Swynnerton Military Training Establishment in Staffordshire.

Many of the women were amongst the so-called Swynnerton Roses, young girls drafted in to make munitions for Allied forces during the Second World War

There were 35,000 women working there at the peak, hundreds of thousands more across the country - all working around the clock for the war effort.

This is one of the buildings here once used to store the finished bullets and bombs. It was dangerous work with what were casually called blow ups a regular occurrence.

If proof were needed just how dangerous the work was, in St Mary's church just up the road from the base there is the headstone of a worker killed by an explosion while working on shift.

Secrecy was paramount too. May of the girls were brought in daily by train to Cold Meece station - not open to the public and known locally as the station with no timetable. There were serious questions for any girl who forgot her factory ID card.

The vital work of the Swynnerton Roses has gone unmarked apart from a 1990's musical by Derbyshire writer Bob Eaton called 'I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire'. But thanks to a campaign by relatives and the local MP, this Sunday, for the first time, they will be represented the the Cenotaph in London, at the national Remembrance Day parade.

Alice will lead the Swynnerton Roses at Sunday's parade with her grandson at her side. It may have taken 70 years to get there but it'll be a journey well worth waiting for.