How Farming Had To Adapt To The Air Raid | Wartime Farm | Absolute History

in September 1939 Britain stood on the brink of the Second World War to avoid defeat one battle would become more important than any other a battle to produce food 2/3 of britain's food was imported and now it was under threat from a Nazi blockade to feed the nation an agricultural revolution of epic proportions was needed to at least double homegrown food production Churchill called the farms of Britain the frontline of freedom now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Gilman are turning the clock back [Music] we're about to embark on the greatest challenge ever faced by British agriculture Peter on the Second World War [Music] over the next year they'll work mana farm in Hampshire as it would have been during the Second World War [Music] come on cream art here the team will relive to struggle of wartime farmers to maximize food production the plow really had become a weapon of war cope with shortages that is a bit of great experience social revolution in the countryside and protect and defend the south coast from the threat of invasion for men evidence of explosives this is the untold story of the countryside at war [Music] you can't find a grinder as they say in 1939 Britain's farmers prepared for war now Alex Ruth and Peter are on their way to their new farm in Hampshire a few miles in from the south coast near the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth during the war this was the frontline against the Nazis like troops farmers - were being mobilized so important was their job to the nation's survival that farming would become a reserved occupation exempt from military conscription agreeing of u-boat surrounding the British Isles effectively storming us to death suddenly all the overseas food on which britain so depended was in jeopardy [Music] german u-boats and warships threatened to destroy convoys transporting supplies across the atlantic to make things worse farming in britain had been in recession since the end of the first world war and now they'd have to double production you know this is probably one of the greatest challenges the British agriculture had ever faced absolutely how to turn it round after 20 years of neglect and a reinvestment in the countryside but the main thing we've got a new team member isn't that right Henry [Music] pretty what farm beautiful isn't this is manna farm eight miles from southampton which they will work on for the coming year handing over the keys is farm manager David trencher Alex Alex yep move pegye fantastic mom you've got here yes it is I think it's you know so you know you wouldn't find a more typical Hampshire family listen you know where's our first port of call gonna be we start in the admin look at the stock manifold was typical of the 1930s cheap cereal crops imported from the United States and Canada mint British farmers could no longer compete so instead of growing crops they concentrated on livestock out of pigs these are these are the pigs yes we keep two breeds on the phone at the moment we keep Saddleback's this is middle White's right good old you know pig for your sausages and everything else you know in fact our rare breed [Laughter] [Music] well I hear you girl here's our girls didn't tell their milkis yeah yeah very good Milford we actually got a Guernsey Jersey and a nation of their white I mean this close to someone like Southampton you know there's definitely gonna be a market for milk isn't it yeah this is our milking parlor Wow that's a non milking machine cups for the teats are in such a reduction in labor yes yeah we have modernized yes so this really it's the 1939 state-of-the-art milking parlor this is it yes don't sit on that stool every morning before the war mana farm also had beef cattle sheep workshops petrol-powered farm equipment [Music] and nearby a wartime village hall dancer mania Foxtrot Wow gramophone records the one I love a Foxtrot alright so we're definitely between the two wars here aren't they hmm this must have been ringing this place such a popular thing to do during the war dad well judging by the state of this place it was an awesome party I've got this fantastic archaeological record here haven't we have life during the war really at the heart of the farm is a row of cottages here Alex Peter and Ruth will experience wartime domestic life ah the kitchen nice light it's a local stove it's tiny how am I supposed to manager that this coal cooking range dates from well before the first world war by the 1930s they were being superseded by cleaner and more efficient cookers no look I'll show you what I've been looking look look see that's what I want oh yeah what's a gas is it nothing electric cooker I mean there's gas cookers and electric cookers going in like crazy all across Britain it's clean takes far less work and the government isn't actually saying that with war coming we're going to know we're going to be short of coal we're gonna need that fuel for other things that electricity is much more efficient it's really encouraging people to move over to electric cooking so their lady gets a new cooker because it's all part of the war effort is what you're trying to say to us [Music] and I'm really looking forward to bringing this place back to life and seeing what it was like living in rural Britain during the Second World War wartime in many people's minds is all about guns and aeroplanes and tanks and young men in uniform but it's also a period in which the British countryside and British country people really came back into their own the farmers had to produce food and provide accommodation for a huge section of the population it was an enormous Lee important part of the war effort and I do think that sometimes it gets forgotten this is an opportunity to explore an untold history here we've got a very very different battle being floor a battle really for food and that untold story is one that I'm just thrilled to be exploring [Music] even before war was declared the government anticipated that a German blockade would drastically reduce food imports so Britain would have to feed itself to do so farmers would have to increase their harvests we've gotthis the government setup war agricultural executive committees in every County to drive through these changes known as war acts they had the power to tell farmers what fields to plow up so Alex and Peter are surveying the farms 30 acres to see how it can be done so this is manna farm here yeah that's the farm and we're bound by the river ham ball here yep coming around this horseshoe shape so all of these fields round here okay would relate to manna farm but of course the majority of this land was all been used for ruin livestock yep but using land for livestock production was not the most efficient way of feeding the nation if a simple principle really isn't it instead of growing all of this feed and to feed animals yeah to slaughter and to then feed people why don't you actually just grow the feed and feed the people directly and it's a much more economic way of feeding because you lose a lot of that calorific value from the original food by putting it through livestock before you feed people you know 1939 war breaks out you had months to get around your farm as we'll be doing and looking at the fields and saying that wheat that beans that barley and that's exactly what we're gonna have to do aren't we we are over the six years of conflict the war AG instructed farmers to grow an extra six and a half million acres of crops a total area bigger than Wales many farmers were ill-equipped for this monumental challenge as they didn't have the machinery or suitable land welcome to the badlands if I were a Potter I could make my fortune here it is beautiful beautiful clay but at the moment this clay as a hindrance the water it sits on it if we attempted to grow crops here they'd be ruined so we need to find some way of draining this this sickling water and then we'll be able to grow a fantastic crop it actually according to the map dips away towards a brook in the bottom of the field so I am worried about sitting water [Music] in this field they decided to grow wheat used to produce bread but a leaflet here Peter this is what the ministry have furnished me with mold drainage for heavy land what the war AG is recommending is the use of a mold sub soiler essentially it's kind of deep cultivation if you'd like it's like a little torpedo that is dragged through the soil at a depth of what Peter about just just over a foot ok foots a foot and a half this David foot it's got to be deeper than the plan that's gonna happen traditionally farmers had drained fields with hand dug ditches and clay pipes but using a mold sub soiler was much quicker and cheaper and used extensively during the war first they need to survey the field to find out which way its slopes now it might look obvious to start with but I can see already that we've got to dip in there there's a danger that if we just drained all the way down to this point okay even if we drain through it we'd still get a buildup of water in this area as archaeologists surveying is second nature to Alex and Peter yes they're perfect just work down a little bit so you sort of hear yep okay that's what five five feet seven about five six five six there we go okay Alex should we do another another line knowing the lay of the land they can work out where to use the mole sub soiler to make underground drainage channels doubling food production put enormous demands on labor so women were drafted to work on the land this made it important to reduce housework by modernizing the kitchen Ruth's called on expert in the household technology dr. Karen sale oh you've caught me I'm still cleaning sorry I fell asleep good to see you I found this fantastic picture in the book here about furniture and know how to layout the home and that is that that's just really what I had in mind we've got you know ye electric cookers you've got your kitchen nets you know it's a modern new kitchen already to disappoint you a little bit but catching that is fine but electric cooker is gonna be a big problem you have mains electricity no not the mains so the fact that we're not on the grid here was that common for farms so yeah breaker for absolutely that was the majority of farms were not on the grid in 1939 just one in ten rural houses had mains electricity but there was an alternative [Music] portable petrol powered generator Philip Everson has brought one along hopefully now we can have some light so that looks frankly like you're about to restart Frankenstein well it would probably do that as well the first of all we should have [Laughter] this is a 50 volt circuit runs 50 volts and after a thousand Watts it's the sort of what you'd call a cottage lighting plant so you've run the engineering during the day to charge a set of batteries up and then when they were fully charged you'd put the lights on at night they'd have the light for that listening to the engine running and he'd use the engine keep the batteries charged that's why so the doable thing could use it to light a workshop we could use it to light lutely yeah they made these engines from 1926 up until 1964 and the actual basic engines they made a porter a million of them there was one of the most successful small power engines ever made in the UK they were almost impossible to kill you could work them an abuser but they still came back for more so the farmers loved them before they can sow the wheat the team need a mole sub soiler to improve the drainage but low incomes during the agricultural depression meant farmers didn't have the money to buy equipment so like farmers of the time Peter must improvise by calling on the services of a blacksmith like Simon summers missus essentially bullet-shaped piece of iron okay that gets dragged through the grounds and it leaves in its wake a channel basically like I suppose a pipe without any yeah yeah you want a solid bit of iron you know some stroke there don't you for that serious yes all right because it this is quite an undertaking in 1939 scrap metal was going to the war effort for armaments production resulting in shortages well that that looks like the face of a seed drill yeah there's some good wheels on that the blacksmith whose craft had long been in decline now found himself once more in demand there's an adjustable linkage there so that could go onto the tractor he had the skill to make do and mend turning rusty metal into new machines the thing I'm most concerned about is the actual physical lump of metal as get dragged through the ground that's iron that is that's honors this rule iron that shaft is yeah well that's pretty we could use that okay yeah it's good quality I in this Henry we're looking for iron not potatoes [Music] in the Forge Simon begins the process of transforming the scrap-iron axle into a brand-new mold a sip now we're going to put back in a fire so it don't take long to heat up the first job is to make a bullet-shaped nose on the mold so he can be pulled easily through the clay soil this is where the sledge comes in and you're gonna follow my pattern you tell me where to hit and I hit it yep [Music] right we're just driving this in to cut a slot we've got to be very careful it's so hot Simon has to keep cooling the tool otherwise it gets stuck in there and we'll essentially Forge the two together [Music] once the fields have been drained with Peters mole subsoiler they'll be returned to bare earth by plowing but alex has spotted another problem he can't plow a field okay when it's got big thick sward you know a thick grass on the top of it it just doesn't work you've got to have it eaten down so it's almost like a carpet to do this Alex is calling on the beef cattle reared by Debbie Underwood so you've built up a real rapport then with this this herd we've had since she was two weeks old really I used to pick him up and carry around she's like a lovely soapy Labrador this is Abigail Abigail yeah gorgeous come on them but back then this herd would have faced an uncertain future you know you would have had farmers pretty much like Debbie here who he would grow not with cattle but all their life but with war looming and this desire to go more cereals and the ministry for agriculture wasn't going to reward farmers who kept beef cattle and take the cattle about three weeks to graze this grass ready for plowing this route and Karen of furnishing the kitchen with labor-saving devices pastry preparation absolutely all your food storage all cleanly tied in weight it's great isn't it with the generator finally connected up Ruth has electric light in the cottage [Music] hopefully she'll have better law with the radio [Music] of course this is how you can get movies particularly to go further into the world the newspapers themselves have to be cut down incredibly sometimes there are only sort of four sides at a time all right so the best way of finding out exactly what's going wrong and it's really a good connection with your connection with the wider world absolutely electricity also meant new labor-saving gadgets whilst about your life's traditionally an iron was a piece of flat metal heated on a coal range now they were replaced by ones you could simply plug in so it's a bayonet or like a bolt is a very exact like a ball how much faster is that that's not only fast but that's so you don't have to worry about small generators weren't capable of powering large appliances though like electric cookers but there was a modern convenient replacement for the coal range they're supposed to just stand free stuff no plumbing in there's no fixing to anything it's just a little stand well against it this is the way forward this is modernity so it's just a series of flat paraffin lamps this is nothing new is it no it's exactly like oil lamps people would have been very used to using this and that helps with the idea of the adoption of the technology as well and you can see that in the styling it's all sort of like painted black to look like her range yeah it's made of really thin sheet metal absolutely and that's to make people feel very comfortable I really looking forward to cook it up this thing's gonna be so different it's gonna be so much easier presumably no smoke and you're not having to shovel coal much less labor-intensive I care you get Sledge Peter yeah to drain the bogeyland for cereal production Peter and blacksmith Simon summers are making a mold sub soiler so far they've made the head of the mold next they must make a strong bracket to hold it in place below the ground now we need to cut a nut make another cut up here right okay move it long probably about there okay but the best they can find is a rusty Victorian cartwheel rim it's really good aryen it's such a waste if we don't reuse it once we get up to a certain temperature the rust just comes off from so it'd just be like bright new iron again the Brack is finished now to attach it to the mole itself right here comes the hot rivet and it goes so through it catches mushroom they slip you can see why blacksmiths went there and there we have it entirely made from scrap iron that we found in the hedgerow old machineries that we've turned into a new machine casting peter is building a chassis to carry his molé subsoiler so hopefully this is gonna add keeping the mole in the ground and go slide that in like that this project is a mix of quite intensive stress because obviously it's got to be done it's got to be done to a certain time limit but also one of immense joy because it's just so much fun to have a workshop to have a forge to be able to tinker around all good all good stuff Peter we'll need a machine to pull the mole subsoiler through the ground but in 1939 there were 20 horses to every tractor on Britain's farms if farmers were to double food production to meet the demands of war they'd have to replace horse power with mechanical power unlike horses tractors don't need to rest [Music] Pete Dix who has farmed in this area his whole life is giving Alex and Ruth a lesson in driving the most popular wartime tractor the Fortson hello Peter so this is her is that she gonna do all the work for us well we hope so you got another sprung seat here there's no cushions but uh remember putting straw into a coop side toy at all yeah it was much more comfortable on the bum but it's no easy job starting it make sure you've got plenty of oil we're okay during the war tractor numbers on British farms would more than triple from fifty-five thousand to over one hundred and seventy five thousand but the Fortson was notoriously difficult to start as Ruth's about to discover her name wined with the starting handle should we make moose Frank this do you think oh you'll have muscles nay doubling crop production would need a huge increase in labor so women were called upon to drive the tractors much easier to take a horse out of a stable know kind of wartime SUV need Ruth congratulations [Laughter] let's let a get on with it Peter [Music] Pete was just seven when war broke out and he witnessed a transition from horsepower to mechanical power that was captain and that was dick and as you say I started very very young that's you there on top of that it's a big Dre isn't it I'll share and I take it these aren't your boots here know that it's my father's Wow Oh NIC from one day and was off the end of the farm but you wanted to be a farmer from a very young age that's it the changes was that were you attempting second trying second you're attempting second gear yeah what better world where say in the workshop Peters moles sub soiler is taking shape but there aren't enough hours of daylight to get it finished in time using the generator to light the workshop should help this is going to make such a difference because it's going to enable me to work throughout the evening if they don't get the fields drained and plowed in the next few days it won't get the wheat crop sown in time [Music] on the 3rd of September 1939 at quarter past 11:00 in the morning Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made the announcement the nation had been bracing itself for [Music] withdraw there to keep state of war would exist between us I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently [Music] [Music] somebody was my age in 1939 I'd have been in my mid-twenties in the first war the sort of aging are you losing husbands you're losing brothers you have such a strong experience of it and then you know here it is all again so you're sat here you're listening to Chamberlain saying how I regret to tell you we're now at war again against the same people you could lose your husband in the first war and your son in the second I mean even so you'd be sat here looking out the window yeah scarcely able to believe it beautiful summer's day like this Britain was now expecting to be bombed by the Nazis at anytime air raid precautions wardens were tasked with protecting the population Steve Taylor is an expert in wartime civil defense the government assumed that the Nazis would use poison gas on the population so a gas mask was issued to every man woman and child in the country how do we know there's gonna be a gas attack are we just looking out ourselves for bombers so you will hear other an air-raid siren or a rattle I've got the gas flatten here I can show you so once you hear that it's gas masks on immediately but soon as there's an all-clear there'll be an all-clear siren or my trusty AR people will tell you it's all clear right okay it was also feared Britain would suffer night bombing a total blackout on the ground would make locating the target much more difficult for the enemy Steve's demonstrating how doors were blacked out using a light break okay so it's late at night something in the farmyard okay for fall sound of a fox you know and the chickens are going in here in here make sure I've closed to make sure your curtain closed and you know open the door and door open now can you see any light coming you hold them off homes there we go to black out the windows Alex and Peter are making removable frames [Music] spoke back out friend proper job mate right fantastic fantastic that is a great job now all we need to do is to get that blackout curtain up isn't it all you need to do is get that back out going up wide others have more play out of course you need to get that done don't you with war the threat of German u-boats cutting off imports became a reality it wasn't just staple foods like wheat that were under threat imported fruits containing vitamin C were essential to the health of the nation particularly children as a boy Ruth's father Jeff steely was sent into the countryside to forage for alternatives are you telling me all about doing this picking roast in years happen suppose a pound which was quite good for pocket money days he really was and if you do it on the wet days of course they weighed more which was quite good that was your compensation for being out in bad weather and with all the men away it was left to the women and largely the boys to go around the hedges find apples pick these berries there's not much food value in this now but there's vitamin C so all sources of vitamin C we've got used to all the oranges and lemons and limes all that sort of Mediterranean type stuff couldn't get through so we're scratching about trying to find native British but equivalents roots preserving the rose hips in syrup so it can be taken throughout the winter the long slow gentle cooking as suited them quite well so now I just need to strain that liquid off look at that color I'm getting out here really is that well it's the vitamin C is what we're after and that fleshy bit around the seed it's just not making jam or jelly really and once this is all drained out I'll just have to make it into a syrup of sugar the sugar is there to preserve the fruit then when I bottle it it'll keep just like thorns in a mix finally Peter's moles subsoiler is finished and the team can train the field in preparation for sowing the wheat finally all those hours at the shed it's quite a contraption I've got a plan that Peter and I we surveyed the field we put in all the levels but I think the first thing to do is to just concentrate we're up here on just getting in these main drains yeah before Peters contraption can prove itself there's the perennial problem of getting the tractor to start down the fort sir [Music] [Music] it's not going according to plan ideally the moles should be cutting a channel about a foot beneath the surface [Music] when war broke out there were almost 4 million acres of land like this that needed draining okay let's let's go [Music] it's just probably the path of least resistance which is up out of the ground it's clear the chassis built by Peter is too light to keep the mole in the ground in a corner of the farmyard alex has found a much heavier chassis to fit Peters mold subsoiler too that's a lovely but things are about to go from bad to worse the improvised bracket holding the mole has bent because it isn't strong enough time is running out to get the crops owned so they'll have to abandon draining the food as Peter has discovered improvising farm machinery is no easy task but for the wartime farmer this could have been disastrous and incurred the wrath of the war AG if our fields flood yeah the war Wang would look us and they would say we need to move them on hmm so we just better hope against hopes that we have an extremely dry summer a farmer's duties to the nation didn't end with attempting to double crop production their knowledge of the landscape made them invaluable recruits to one of the wars most secret organizations the auxilary units your names have been put forward as men who would like to do something more for the war effort is this something absolutely I mean they have everything we can the auxiliary unit was a resistance force in Waiting a last line of defense against Nazi invasion Steve Mason is an expert on the auxilary unit stationed here on the south coast do you think you could kill another man in cold blood tough this is the sole questions where they were being put two people with its own farmers absolutely absolutely but it really comes down to your personal mettle so this is something beyond the home guard this is actually a Secret Service isn't it absolutely just like the cells are setting up in Europe at the same time a resistance movement looks you've heard of I'm God but why don't you hear of these guys because the people who joined this particular resistance movement had to sign the Official Secrets Act I suppose if during the war if we were held back in a reserved occupation and we were of a certain age then we'd be seen as kind of both knew the land to farmers and also quite able-bodied absolutely so these are photographs of the men who actually were the auxiliaries for this locality yep you were never to discuss this thing ever I've spoken to two one surviving was earlier who was 18 at the time right so he's young enough still now yet to talk about it he only wants to discuss the people in that photograph who were dead with the Nazis poised to invade the auxilary unit were ready to go to ground and form a gorilla Network to destroy the enemy's infrastructure their instruction manuals were cunningly disguised it's got a cover so if a German invading just picked it up they would hopefully think that it was an out to day calendar and not look inside and this tells you how to handle explosives and again more tricks of the trade how to blow up a petrol tank how to blow up railway lines hello do you think putting yourselves back there would you really actually signed up for this what do you think I I think I think so if you're a reserved occupation like a farmer for example is there gonna be a sense that you want to be out there on the on the front line although your your farming there's a sense that you're gonna want a bit of action and itching to get involved yeah I wonder whether that might have played a part in in PEEP some people signing up a number of them do say that they were they actually just wanted to get their two hands on on some action as corny as it sounds unbeknown to the boys like many farmers wives worth to has been conscripted into secret service gardening has taken on a whole new significance particularly its potting shed because whilst the boys think I'm working in the garden when they're well out of the way in the fields what I'm really doing is this Ruth's been recruited into the special duties section their mission to handle communications between the auxilary units in the field and HQ this is Mary well three and a half thousand people were involved vicars barmaids farmers farmers wives and housewives and yet almost nobody knows about it they really just kept that quiet there are instances in which a wife was doing this with radio whilst the husband was out doing other auxilary work and neither of them told each other until they were in their 80s or 90s years and years later in some ways they say it's comical but it's also really serious people were expecting to be invaded but they were expecting that this sort of work put their lives in serious danger if you've been caught with a radio when the Germans came you weren't looking not just at execution but probably a torture too informant confirms successful patrol maneuver for men evidence of explosives northwest of our bow would approximate time wo 15 location humble G despite their important top-secret military duties the priority for farmers was doubling crop production to feed the nation although the team were unable to mold rain the boggy field the task now is to plow as quickly as possible in preparation for sowing the wheat with the day's drawing shorter the war agricultural committee encouraged farmers to plow on into the night [Music] got a we've got planned for you tonight and this was of course something that was expected during the war not something I think people did willingly really but unfortunately we've just we've just got to this because it's so behind plowing at night creates unique problems right so this is our Lantern and it's just in the hedge and it's gonna give something for Ruth to fix on on the horizon she can drive theoretically in a straight line I hope it worried though about using these lights with the blackout I reckon though the lamps and the hedge probably could be hidden with the air anyway yeah and this one's we got hood on it yeah and this lamp will be moving so I just aim at the light in the hedge yeah that's the idea [Music] [Music] what do you think about plowing you invariably think about the horsemen out there with his horses gently plowing away in the quiet that's on a nice sunny spring morning but during the Second World War plowing was a very very different monster and the plow really had become a weapon of war it was the farmers principal weapon of war [Music] I'm not entirely sure we're getting this right but we're putting all into it and roots doing a fantastic job hopefully by the end of the month we'll have the peel done [Music] next morning Ruth is called into action by the special duties section a mission to pass a message on to the auxilary unit Hampshire with its strategic ports of Southampton and Portsmouth was a key target for invasion so more auxilary units were stationed here than any county in Britain military expert Gerald Sutcliffe is leading Alex and Peters Patrol what we're going to now is and all be an operational base so we've got basically a little bunker we've already got some equipment munitions and rations in let's go and over look at it now so it [Music] it's all over the country around the coast particular and groups like us we're gonna provide me a nasty surprise to Herr Hitler unlike the other countries which have had the unfortunate experience of his jackboots going over them we're ready we're gonna come up behind him I'm gonna blow up his pickle domes we're gonna blow up his own munition dump we're gonna sabotage his tanks we're gonna shoot his officers anybody that helps him the aim was to transform ordinary farmers with no military experience into guerrilla saboteurs Alex has picked up the message dropped by the special duty section with details of a training exercise we've been left and not advising as that a German Patrol 10 men is expected and more of my thoughts are we'll ambush their Patrol we've got another this is a typical exercise passed on by the mysterious agent our agent Oh and wonder who that could be that's the point you will never know I know I do I never know the members of the intelligence section they don't know you they just leave with messages for us we pick them up we never see them or they are [Music] training by night then working in the fields by day meant a wartime farmer could find himself working 17 hour days two members of the team to go up on the ridgeline while I go down and I range rig a couple surprises yeah right and one of you can cover me while that's going on why do I have to go in front what's on Peter Alex and Peter keep watch from the ridge line following instructions set out in the auxiliary unit manual Gerald's sets of booby trap rigged up is a grenade the pin move its fishing pressure on top of it so when somebody kicks it it's gonna release the lever and go back this being an exercise there are no Germans Jerry's grenade is simply a thunder flash well good for a first attempt you think so I think so they would have used all sorts of methods to simulate combat okay I did it that way because you weren't expecting it to add that bit of tension and realism yeah so you were both conditioning us and testing us at the same time yes Alex Ruth and Peter have now been wartime farmers for two months for Ruth the work in the fields has left little time for domestic duties so she's taken another step towards modernizing the kitchen by fitting lino [Music] you often hear you know about labor-saving things in the kitchen you sort of imagine it's all about gadgets now it's about things like this the things that make the big difference instead of spending you know 45 minutes twice a day on the floor like you might have to with a stone flag floor I can run over with a mop and bucket in ten minutes [Music] the paraffin stove is also helping to save time unlike an old-fashioned coal range it's up and running in seconds Ruth's using it to cook a quick meal from her 1930s cookbook fried bacon with bananas such an old recipe to find in a late thirties book it was sober surprised Bacon's gonna become a thing of scarcity by 1939 we were already bringing in quite a significant proportion of our bacon from Denmark and then the bananas doing the butter bananas would soon disappear completely from the shops as the government requisitioned banana boats to import materials essential to the war effort from the declaration of war in September 1939 until May 1940 no bombers appeared overhead and the gas attacks didn't materialize it became known as the phoney war but by June 1914 after the British had been driven into the sea at Dunkirk the mood was darkening [Music] France felt of announces and as the new Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned Britain was next in line interesting isn't it you know that speech is so iconic it must have been terrifying for people as well to think that you know there could possibly have been fighting on the beaches and in the fields and someone like Hampshire where we are a gallon would be to the one the frontline is the whole problem isn't it of looking back at the war we know that we want mm-hmm people at the time did not know that the farms at the time they've really been hopeful you guys oh you'd up to get of success in that harvest mmm it would have loaded a lot of pressure on their shoulders you know it would have really I think hammered home just how important it would have been to have brought that crop in and to have brought a brilliant crop in as well and that's all about the connectedness too isn't it you know everybody's hearing that all together you feel like you've absolutely got to do it right to do justice to the effort that was put in you know from 39 I really feel a big responsibility to those people who went through this and who are still alive you know it's sort of not something to be taken lightly is it nah we're messing with people's memories as well as with Britain's history well indeed indeed you know you're in luck Claire I'm on my rounds I have to say what a marvelous job you've done will you window they absolutely do I told you there but no you're gonna be in for a fine because you're showing the light under your door really really you have to put the curtain up so what is the consequences county court your summons you anything from its free showings to seven six ever think of course the other thing to mention is the excessive lights that you're burning for a small room we've got three lights so that would incur another fine classic thing when you're not physically doing the thing like filling it will lamp if you've just grabbed the first you don't think about the balance and how much you using mmm well I think we should enjoy these desserts while we can because I think from now on in things are only getting a tough around there that's what this bit is Kurt nothing [Music] the teams back on track with the task of increasing the farms food production the wheat field is plowed next it's harrowed to break up the earth [Music] and sewed with the wheat seed if all goes well in nine months time they should have a good crop to harvest yellow cracked on as my we really attractive in 39 if by the spring of 1940 1.7 million acres extra extra I'm talking what they were already doing and top of what they already did the Lord farmer said it couldn't be done you know they shook their heads and said no we can't do that but I know they turned round and did it wartime farmers didn't know it yet but this was just a start they still had five years of war to endure and conditions were only going to get tougher as they struggled to feed the nation [Music]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 149,988

Rating: 4.9075952 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, wartime farm, blackout restrictions, world war two, britain at war, british history, dunkirk, britain during world war, living in britain, ruth goodman, alex langlands, peter ginn, living in a farm, historic farm

Id: A_YfJQnDg-U

Length: 58min 9sec (3489 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020