Muriel, who donned her Land Army jodphurs “at every opportunity” including to celebrate the 70th anniversary of VE Day, was among the tens of thousands of young women who toiled to feed the nation during World War.

She did every job from ditching and stooking sheaves to pulling sugar beet and muckspreading.

Most of the girls who joined the Women’s Land Army were aged in their late teens or early twenties. Over 200,000 women served from June 1939 until November 1950.

Muriel Berzins from Aldborough near Hull a Land Girl during World War 2 pictured in her original Land Girl uniform outside her house.

Muriel was born in Villa Place, Hull and went into service as a maid but she was a country girl at heart, and it was the “best day of her life” when she joined the WLA in 1943 escaping the smoke and dust of the bombed city.

Despite the back-breaking job – they had to use pickaxes to take soil off the potato “pies” in freezing weather – she remembered her seven years sharing Army type huts with 60 other lasses as “great fun” and the girls she met became life-long friends.

It was also where she met her late husband Arvids, also a farmworker, who had been forced to leave his home country of Latvia after the Russian invasion.

She told the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps website about her work – and how she stood on a box to put a horse collar on a gentle giant of a Shire Horse, adding: “How times have changed, you never see people in the fields nowadays, but I think I was lucky to, experience the old ways.

Muriel Berzins in the Land Army in the late 1940s

"Looking back on a field of rows of stooks of corn, barley and oats in the sunshine was a sight to behold.”

Sculptor Peter Naylor met Muriel when he was drawing up plans for the Women’s Land Army memorial at Clochan in Scotland which shows a group of women standing on a six bar gate.

Mr Naylor said: “She was fantastic. She was always positive and upbeat. The Land Army was the happiest days of her life.”

Four women, including Muriel, travelled with Mr Naylor to Scotland a year later to mark the anniversary of the unveiling. Sadly only one is still alive.

Muriel Berzins from Aldborough near Hull a Land Girl during World War 2 pictured in her origional Land Girl uniform outside her house decorated for VE day

Muriel’s son Andrew Berzins said they were asking people to come to her funeral at 2.15pm next Tuesday (April 25) at St Bartholomew’s Church in Aldbrough dressed in bright clothes.

Many in the village will remember her from her activities with the WI. She used to peddle round the village on her pushbike into her 80s and loved to paint.

He said: “She was an absolute legend. I’ve had over 100 messages already on Facebook. People have only had good to say about her.

"She used to campaign for bus shelters for the village – she’d write to Peter Levy (the BBC Look North presenter)

Muriel Berzins ( 3rd left) from Aldborough near Hull a Land Girl during World War 2 pictured with other Land Girls .

“When they first married it was very hard times – they had a tied cottage, no heating, no hot water, the toilet was outside. They used to sit on orange boxes.

"Her faith in God was so strong – she knew in her heart and head that she was going to be with my Dad in heaven and she couldn’t wait to get there.”

One of Yorkshire 's last Land Army girls 'who did every job on the farm despite being under 5ft tall' dies at the age of 99