Hereford memorial to remember women who died during war

Nancy Billings, who unveiled the memorial, said it was a "lovely, lovely statue"

Women who have given their lives and served their countries during war and conflicts are being remembered at two Hereford nursing homes.

A silent silhouette memorial was put on the lawn at the Hampton Grange and Gwen Walford homes on Hampton Park Road.

It was unveiled by a former munitions worker at Rotherwas in Herefordshire, Nancy Billings, on Thursday.

She said she never thought she would "have the honour to do anything like that".

The ex-munitions worker said: "It's a lovely, lovely statue... I think it's very important, because I think that women did play a big part in the war effort. We were called up as well.

"I could work in the munitions or go into the forces, but because I was so small, they said I'd have to work in the kitchen.

"So I thought, 'No way am I going to do that,' so I said, 'No, I'll work in munitions,' and that's how I came to work at Rotherwas."

Another woman who attended the unveiling, Jean Moseley, said her father was in World War One and was badly injured.

In World War Two, one of her brothers was at Arnhem - the crossing in the Netherlands known as the Bridge Too Far, after Field Marshal Montgomery's ill-fated Market Garden campaign to try to shorten the war.

"He was badly injured there as well," she said.

David Lews was carrying his "grandad's first bible in [the] First World War" at the unveiling.

He said: "I only ever see him once, because he was gassed."

After reflecting on her father in the Royal Artillery, Audrey Knight said: "What was the point of it? Why were we killing each other? It was so unnecessary. It didn't solve anything at all."