VETERAN Worcester journalist and writer Michael Grundy always weaves a cracking good yarn but last month he really excelled himself.

Writing in the Evening News' sister paper Berrow's Worcester Journal, he told the story of the Faithful City's celebrated female soldier, the legendary Hannah Snell, who lived in the 18th Century.

Mike recounted how Hannah, one of nine children of a Friar Street haberdasher, followed her errant lover and joined up as James Grey in a regiment of foot.

Surviving a savage flogging and numerous gunshot wounds on active service, she eventually left the British Army and once more adopted women's attire. Somehow, her story leaked out, and fame quickly followed after beginning a new career on the stage.

Great stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. So, fired up by this tale of derring-do, I did a bit of digging myself, and came up with some more examples of women who, for various reasons, took the shilling and followed the drum.

In fact, turning the pages of Birmingham folklorist Roy Palmer's The Rambling Soldier discovered several case histories. I find such accounts fascinating after all, those of us who are descended from the old British rural and working class usually find plenty of soldier ancestors.

For despite the brutal punishments and harsh discipline, it was a way of escape for many a young man and - as we shall see for quite a number of young women, too.

Soldiers have always attracted the opposite sex, and ever since armies have marched, the camp follower has not been far away. In some cases, a woman might have become an army wife and would be allowed to follow her man when his regiment went abroad, and even into battle.

But danger was never far away for women who went further and pretended to be men. Peter Henly, writing in Roy Palmer's book, tells of the young soldiers who went on a turnip-stealing expedition. Sadly for them, the farmer gave chase, and one of the recruits was captured, taken before an officer, and put in the guardhouse.

The soldier was eventually sentenced to receive 200 lashes. But before the punishment could be carried out, he confessed to being a woman and was spared the horrors of the lash.

The account she gave for her conduct was this. She had been born in Scotland to a wealthy family. One day, a regiment of soldiers was quartered in the town, and she promptly took a fancy to one of them. However, her father found out, confined his daughter to her chamber, and persuaded the commanding officer to have the young man sent abroad with another regiment.

The lovesick girl was distraught and vowed she would not be parted from her soldier. So, dressing in man's clothes, she went in search. Encountering a camp of soldiers, she decided to enlist, reasoning that she would stand a better chance of discovering her lost love if she was also posted overseas.

Her story is told in The Drum Major, a song that dates from Duke of Marlborough's time. The song remained in oral circulation until recently.

Men often marched off on campaign in high good humour. Wars, it seems, often start in euphoria and finish, if not in despair, then in disenchantment. There is a large body of literature dealing with the theme of a woman dressing as a soldier, either to accompany or rejoin her lover, or to sample for herself the rigours of military life.

For both sexes, a considerable degree of wish-fulfilment must have been involved. For women, there was the relish of passing among men without detection, and for men, the thrilling thought that a woman might be hiding in the ranks, awaiting discovery.

Yet the realities of military life makes one wonder how women remained undetected. Soldiers habitually slept naked, and the prospect of being stripped to the waist and flogged was, as we have seen, usually enough to bring a masquerade to an end.

However, I have discovered an extract from her book, The Female Soldier, in which Hannah Snell explains how she preserved her pretence when being flogged at Carlisle. She wrote: At that time her (Snell's) breasts were but very small, and her arms being extended and fixed to the city gates, her breasts were towards the wall, so that there was little danger of her comrades finding out the important secret which she took uncommon pains to conceal".

Probably the most famous case is that of Mother Ross who enlisted in order to join her husband and continued to soldier on after his death in battle. An account published by Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe in 1740 was entitled The Life and Adventures of Mrs Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross. A tough lady, by all accounts.

Returning to Worcester's warrior, this is how Hannah Snell teases her former comrades, taunting her old comrades-in-arms with their missed opportunity after her discharge. In true ballad style, she said: "Had you known, Master Moody, who you had between a pair of sheets with you, you would have come to closer quarters. In a word, gentlemen, I am as much a woman as my mother ever was, and my real name is Hannah Snell".

Songs once abounded with references to women in disguise. The Banks Of The Nile contains this verse.

I will put on my velveteens and go along with you

I'll volunteer my services and go to Egypt too

I'll fight beneath your banner, love, kind fortune yet may smile

I'll be your loyal comrade on the Banks of the Nile

Another ballad from the 18th Century, I Would that the Wars were all Done, appears in several forms. One version has the heroine threatening to dress in some young man's array to fight till the wars are all over".

Finally, there is that beautiful ballad The Bonny Light Horseman, a heart-rending lament by a young girl who mourns for her lover killed on the plains of Waterloo. This is a song which, according to its collector, Sam Henry, enjoyed widespread popularity in the days after the battle in 1815. It was frequently printed, with an extended text, on broadsides, at least one of which has a female warrior verse.

I shall dress in man's appare

To the regiment I'll go

I'll be a true subject

And fight all his foes

I would count it an honour

If I could obtain

To die in the field

Where my darling was slain.

I think we can state without any shadow of doubt that Worcester's legendary Hannah Snell would have identified with such sentiments.

For they can only have been wrung from the soul of a woman whose heart beat as steady as that of any man.