IN the spring of 1941 Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour and National Service, declared that "One million wives were wanted for war work".

The Women’s Timber Service had been set up during the First World War, but in April 1942 the Ministry of Supply inaugurated a new venture – the Women’s Timber Corps (WTC), in England, to serve as part of the Women’s Land Army.

They were known as "lumberjills", as York playwright Hannah Davies learned when she saw a sculpture in Dalby Forest during York company Common Ground Theatre's site visit to meet Forestry Commission development manager Petra Young with a view to mounting a site-specific show. The resulting play, or "outdoor theatre experience", as the poster calls it, opens at Dalby Forest, near Pickering, on Wednesday.

Girls and women were recruited from the age of 17, although some were as young as 14. They came from all kinds of backgrounds and all walks of life. Those who needed training were sent to and billeted at training camps and then posted throughout the county to wherever they were needed.

The Lumberjills, as they were affectionately known, replaced the men who had answered the call to war, carrying out the arduous tasks of felling, snedding, loading lorries and trains and sawmilling timber all over England.

The Forestry Commission England (FCE) decided to provide a lasting memorial to the women of the WTC with a commemorative sculpture at Haygate in Dalby Forest, as a site where the members of the WTC used to work. It was this sculpture that so inspired Hannah and Common Ground, a company with a track record in making theatre and performances for non-traditional performance spaces.

Hannah's play tells the stories of the women who worked in Britain’s forestry trade during the Second World War, with director Tom Cornford casting actor-musicians Amie Burns Walker as Connie, Jannah Warlow as Mary and Ashleigh Cordery as Ada.

Set in a woodland glade, transformed with log seating into a 1940s' military campsite by production designer Jessica Watson, The Lumberjills will be staged at the end of Dalby Forest’s Ellerburn Trail, a fully accessible half-hour's walk from the visitor centre that will enable the audience to become immersed in the woodland environment before discover the hidden heritage of Yorkshire’s largest forest.

York Press:

Amie Burns Walker as Connie in The Lumberjills

Tom Cornford says: "We were contacted by the Forestry Commission at Dalby after our audio walk with installations, Within This Landscape, that told a story of loss and coming-of-age across a walk around the North Yorkshire village of Coxwold.

"There's a wealth of material about the Women’s Timber Corps at Dalby and they wondered if we were interested in turning it into a performance. We jumped at the chance and are incredibly excited now to be making a play with songs for a hidden location, deep in the woods, that tells the story of the Second World War from the perspective of a small group of young women working in an unfamiliar, dangerous and beautiful environment to produce timber."

Hannah Davies is delighted to be drawing attention to the work of the lumberjills. "Their war effort was not officially recognised in memorial ceremonies until 2009; they were the unspoken heroes," she says.

"When we did our site visit, we thought, 'what story could we tell?', as we didn't want to just plonk a theatre show in the forest. The Lumberjills sculpture was put in place in 2012 and we wondered, 'Oh, who were they?', and we discovered it was a great story to tell.

"Petra Young and one of her colleagues had interviewed a couple of the lumberjills who had worked there and she had some audio too, so my eyes lit up. 'That's the story for us,', I decided."

Common Ground Theatre presents The Lumberjills, Dalby Forest, near Pickering, from July 20 to 31; Wednesday to Sunday, at 2pm and 6pm; suitable for age seven upwards. Allow half an hour to walk to the performance site at the end of the Ellerburn Trail, Dalby Forest. Box office: cgtheatre.co.uk