Country's first postwoman from Epsom stepped in to her role

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Country's first postwoman from Epsom stepped in to her role during the Great War

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http://cml.sad.ukrd.com/image/335279-320x240.credit-show.jpgThe country's first postwoman took up her role during the First World War, in Epsom.

It is just one of the items of interest at the Women at War exhibition for children this afternoon at the Bourne Hall Museum in Ewell.

Museum assistant David Brooks said: "Epsom had the first women postman in the country."

"She wasn't a postwoman, she was a postman, a lady called Nora Willis, and she was actually quite famous in her time."

"She was quite a lady, she went on to be Epsom's first lady councillor."

"By the end of the war, we actually had about 30 postwomen."

Women's football took off during the First World War - as they stepped in to their menfolk's boots while they were away fighting.

Mr Brooks said football was just one of the occupations taken over by women during the Great War: "At the beginning of the war there was a lot of professional football."

"So they were all called up, and women's football took over."

"And women used to play to huge crowds of fifty thousand, much bigger than they are nowadays."

"And in the early 1920s the FA actually had to stop it to actually get the men's game back on track after the war."

The Women at War exhibition starts at 1pm and ends at 2:30pm.