'Idle Women' poster girl found

THE girl depicted on a poster advertising for women to work the canals during the second world war, has been found after in international search.

Known by the wartime canal workers as the 'Idle Women', being from a different class, they kept the canals working by taking the place of men who had joined the forces.

Nursing home

There was a poster issued depicting such a woman with a barge pole in her hands, and it is this woman for whom the search was made, who has been found in a Hobart nursing home.

Audrey Harper, at 22,  put her Swiss finishing school behind her to 'do her bit' for the war effort by the physically demanding and dirty work of a canal woman, spending nearly three years working the boats.

Spent years searching

Researchers have spent years trying to trace the girl, one of 120 who signed up for the duration, though less than 50 actually lasted more than six months.

Now at 91, she says 'that was probably some of the best years of my life'.