Knit for victory: the lost songs that gave women a role on the home front

After a painstaking search, singer Melanie Gall will perform the forgotten war ditties on a tour of the UK

In one song, a badly knitted mitten is shot through a cannon at the Nazis and somehow ends up in the hands of Adolf Hitler, who finds it such a confusing and intimidating object he decides to stop fighting and surrender.

In another, a sentimental love song which Glenn Miller composed and Judy Garland performed, a young mother sings about knitting a sweater to keep the father of her baby warm while he is fighting in battle.