How Food Was Rationed in Wartime Britain | Wartime Farm | Absolute History

the great British countryside setting for one of the most pivotal battles of the Second World War Churchill called it the frontline of freedom it was a battle fought by the farmers of Britain when war broke out two-thirds of all Britain's food was imported now it fell under threat from a Nazi blockade the government turned to farmers to double homegrown food production if they failed Britain could be starved into surrender the war started on day one for farmers they were told you have to turn this land into a food producing nation again now historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are turning the clock back to the 1940s over the next year they'll work manna farm in Hampshire as it would have been during the Second World War this time they faced the conditions of 1940 when Nazi bombers brought death and destruction to Britain the team must deal with rationing that in total is your fat Russian that's particularly hard to make last the week make use of every last resource but this was an experiment I can see why people hadn't picked it before and confront temptation around every corner you're well on your way to becoming a black marketeer as the race begins to beat the shortages on the wartime farm [Music] in 1940 German bombers were targeting Britain's docks destroying food imports by sea and by air Britten's farmers were ordered to plow up an extra two million acres of land but with so many fields growing food for people that weren't enough to grow food for animals as well cows get hungry Alex and Peter are preparing feed for their livestock it was cereals like this that we're now in short supply he was milling up a barley meal it's a classic feed for feeding anything from pigs to cows but of course Paulie could be used to make beer could be used to feed human beings so it's considered a waste really to feed it to livestock but we were to turn that into flour make it into bread yep this competition for land was debated at the highest levels of government the Ministry of Agriculture had been granted emergency powers to control farming and they now told farmers the time had come to make a difficult decision this is a map of Manor Farm is it yes this is manifold the Ministry of Agriculture are breathing down our necks asking us to grow more food for human consumption but essentially looking at this map it's not a lot of room on our farm for growing wheat you can't see the map for animals yeah no exactly wartime planners knew they could feed more people with a field of wheat than with a herd of cattle and encouraged farmers to drastically cut their livestock numbers you've got to make a call on what can stay and what can go we're gonna keep anything it really ought to be the Dairy Herd ministry is saying that the priority should be milk production and then all the other livestock only comes after that in which case a we've got to lose the beef herd so these are going to come out and if we are plowing up the grassland we're not going to have it to feed the Sheep so I think they're gonna have to go I mean basically pigs eat the same food as people so they're in direct competition so I think they ought to go so we've got a few chickens and a day millions of livestock was slaughtered in the wartime coal but they weren't the only ones affected does beg the question with no sheep on the farm what happens to this winery dog [Music] it's a tough decision we were thinking you know are we gonna eat enough you know is it people gonna be starving no son you look for that thing in the corner and think you're eating food that I could be eating that's a tough one imagine being in this situation you've got the faithful sheepdog you've had all your life probably grown up with it yeah I think many people actually thought it was a kindness to put them down rather than the pets actually starving to death we just can't get rid of Henry because and we've lost my most intelligent member of the team so you know we gotta keep the guy just be a little bit too much there he is he will be useful we moved him but we still have to try and find a way to keep a Dairy Herd going throughout the winter months come on cows the Ministry of Agriculture wanted dairy farmers to feed their cows on a foodstuff packed with protein silage silage is made by starving freshly cut grass of oxygen preserving its nutrients for feeding over winter but with so many fields being plowed up grass wasn't always available so the boys must find an alternative we're going to a farm that grows sugar beet Peter sugar me okay get yourself comfy it's a bit of a drive and I have to say I haven't quite mastered the gearbox on this old boy so we're going to go and pick up sugar beets yeah well no not actually sugar B itself we're going to pick up sugar beet tops and now you're going to have to start swatting up number four from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries again tells us all about sugar beet tops and making silage fresh sugar beet tops are equivalent in feeding value to the same weight of sweets Wow and in normal weather they may remain fixed to feed for several weeks yes but if the supply of pups is too great to feed fresh the surface should be in soil for later use that's the idea Peter if we make a silage clamp or we get some kind of drum we can get the soliton we can use that feed all the way through the winter so how many sugar beet tops you think will fit in this car well I don't know I'm sure with the god box is quite roomy get a handful sugar beet was a vital wartime crop grown to take the place of sugar imports but vast acres of sugar beet created an urgent need for machines to harvest it farmers were required to muster some particularly ingenious new contraptions morning chat morning Alex and Peter have come to meet the men of the Peterborough farm machinery Preservation Society who are trying out one of the earliest of these intricate harvesters which was made in Denmark in the 1940s what are you doing here we're just doing a bit of a modification to try to improve the performance of the machine right okay so we've caught you at a point of experimentation have way you are this is fantastic for us because this is almost certainly a scene that you would have seen in 1939-1940 with the outbreak of war and the introduction of this type of technology farmers are confronted with this new and innovative equipment which they've got to tweak and tinker with to get to work exactly what these guys are doing basically a lot of fiddling with nuts and bolts the machine does two different jobs one part Lister beats out of the ground and the other cuts the tops off this yeah that's what I'm drawing me about that disc right we don't steer me extra muscle here Ron just in case you need it some people yes I'm sure we're right if the tractor drivers ready [Music] Wow that's an early sign Ron that this thing could go yes right okay Oh speak too soon why did it miss them right third time lucky so wouldn't I get it though were they gonna do that your guess is as good as mine while the boys focus on making food for the dairy cows back on the farm there are other animals that won't be so lucky pigs were seen as a luxury and bore the brunt of the wartime cold their numbers fell by nearly 60 percent over the course of the war and pork became a much sought-after rarity but there was one way around the shortage Ruth's come to talk to stop woman debbie Underwood about a possible solution I was wondering if maybe we could hang on to one as a pig club what you think well it was a wartime scheme to get together and raise the pigs sort of communally people bring all their kitchen waste and their garden waste you've got enough food to feed a pig and then when you come sort of the pig you divide the pig up between everybody who's fed it no it was a way of keeping some bacon and pork in the system pig clubs were officially encouraged by the government and were popular not just in the countryside but in cities to around 7,000 were set up raising a hundred and forty thousand pigs between them how are we gonna choose one it was quite a nice even litter isn't it yeah good looking piglets ease they are yes so maybe if I find some people who'd like to be in the pig club and then you know perhaps get together and we cook up a batch of swill okay feed it to those and see which one's greed is yeah sure one is the greediest who's gonna be the one that's gonna fatten quickest the machine is still causing problems with the beet harvest if they can't get it going they'll have to lift the crop by hand that's it should be run night harvested sugar beet as a boy and remembers how it was done they lay them out in rows like that right and then go along and drop a map and that knife has been replaced by that machine yeah you ever go trapping that chair you know I'm on your thumb you don't get another one I am where I parked it anyway you marked yes there you are that was a quite accessible chopper you're in the entry outlook to harvest this field by hand would take about a month the machine should get it done in two days if they can get it working I think we're getting clogged up with the leaves it is cutting off the top of the beets the tops that we should be taking away for silence yes I reckon we need to shovel them out of the way that machine looks like there's gonna be some work for us here Pierre with the tops pulled out of the way the machine is able to run smoothly those two forks they get underneath the beat they lift it up and as it goes round the drum knocks all the dirt off of it okay and then kicks it up into a bucket on the other side when that's full Willy opens it and it dumps the load onto the ground and this is what it's all about here are our sugar beet there are a lot of unsightly looking turnip okay but six of these boiled down would make about a kilo of sugar and it's amazing to think that actually during the period of the war these are responsible for producing the domestic sugar ration that's nearly three million tons of sugar sugar beet was the ultimate wartime crop it was transformed from being a niche product grown by just a few farmers to being a mainstream crop farmed all over the country Ruth's got some recruits for her pig Club pickup so what we got beet troops innings ones haven't fattened out tops of a cup of cabbage burns old potatoes there that are no longer suitable for our use in a way the scraps will be turned into a soupy swill oh good stuff the swill was often collected by one designated person as pig club member jermdixon calls your parents actually we're in a pig club during the war that's right yes it was soft weighted by a local butcher what were you putting in the pigs well everything that wasn't eaten we didn't separate any of it out if it was food it wasn't eaten it went straight to the pigs and they did also used to take the bones as well I mean nowadays people would over kittens about the idea of that there'd be really worried about contaminating the food chain feeding pigs with animal by-products was linked to an increase in foot and mouth disease during the war to avoid the hazards Ruth's pig will only be fed with waste from the garden not the kitchen so are you gonna be able to keep up the supply of swill anything we will try it's towards the end of the year it's always more difficult during the autumn well if we can't keep it up you know six months down the line half a peak between us [Laughter] [Music] the beats will be sent to a factory to be refined into sugar Alex and Peter are collecting the tops which they plan to turn into silage well I can see why I mean I've seen the war they want to produce as much silage as possible keep the animals going but this was an experiment I can see where people hadn't picked it as a silage crop before but this is going to be the key to keeping a Dairy Herd in a wartime farm isn't it this is going to provide the succulence providing we get the silo right providing we get the silo right [Music] I got that bucket as well ah I look uh hungry only enough it smells delicious yeah let's see if they're hungry right let's go come on now yeah show a bit sweeter pig what do you think I just turned a nose up which is quite easy for her well this is going well this is going really well Ruth's plan is to choose the greediest pig for a pig club well they're quite intrigued by this something yeah they're interested I'm not actually eating it yet oh yes they are yeah especially her with a little short tail yes little shorty that's the little female so that might be quite a nice one to keep let's have a look at her go on grab a look [Music] Ruth will keep Shorty and snowflake but the other pigs have to go [Music] [Music] Alex and Peter are back at the farm they'll let the sugar beet tops wilt for a few days before turning them into silage for the dairy cows first they must deal with the animals they don't want to keep sheep were considered a low priority as they needed to eat a lot of food to produce relatively little meat all wartime farmers getting rid of livestock had to deal with a new force that would come to dominate their lives the Ministry of food the idea of the ministry was to control really all of the produce that came from farms so pretty much anything be produced on the farm would have to go through the Ministry of food the arrival of the Ministry of food meant farmers were now answerable to tumid government bodies on this side of the farm gate okay they had the Ministry of Agriculture anything that went on in the farm was the concern of the Ministry of Agriculture but on this side of the gate was all about the Ministry of food so when the livestock passed over this flesh hold it then became the concern of the Ministry of food the Ministry of food was responsible for the biggest food distribution network attempted anywhere in the world the rationing system I've got here the ration for one person for one week in 1940 of course not everything was rationed you could in fact have as much bread as you could afford as much vegetables as you could get your hands on but a whole range of things were auctioned rationing began in January 1940 with bacon the first meat to go on the list four ounces per person a week you could have it as ham instead but not as well as it amounts to about four slices the butter however is even more scarce can you imagine trying to manage on that much butter a week you were allowed other fats this is for cooking fat and that in total is your fat Russian that's particularly hard to make last the week joining the first wave of rationing were sugar around twelve ounces per week so these foods were rationed in January by March meat fresh meat had joined the ration unlike these which are based on weight meat rationing was done upon value how much money you were allowed to spend if in 1940 you bought a really good piece of meat this is how far your one shilling and temperance took you so that would be a week's meat not bad but you don't eat meat say two days a week you could however be a bit more canny if I bought something like a Shinobi's mich you can see immediately as a less quality class I could have an awful lot more that there is one pound of shu beef and i could in fact have had three times that amount for the same rationed money that i have for that cut of beef and alongside it awful and I've got here kidney and liver this amount of offal cost the same as that a bit of beef now to a modern eye you might think well that's not so bad that's not so very little meat and it's true but this is the peak of meat eating during the war at the beginning of the war you were allowed all of that as the war went on the amount of ration for meat reduced and reduced and reduced and reduced so within a year and a half it was half that size suddenly a Russian was just one of those a week the Ministry of food made huge efforts to get people to accept the rations system people talked a great deal about fair shares about fairness at this time of difficulty and scarcity the whole of the rationing system was presented to the population as about being about fairness so that everybody had ration cards including the royal family and that was important to people it made people feel quite differently about the whole system but though the scheme was based on fairness those in the countryside had certain advantages [Music] the ancient tradition of the hedgerow harvest came into its own as people went out to forage for whatever they could find hey you were supposed to be spotting these even in the depths of autumn nature's bounty could be pressed into use there's no doubt about townies came off a lot worse during the war you're out here in the countryside you've got so many more resources at your fingertips I mean whether it's finding your mushrooms or or acorns on the floor or horse chestnuts with sweet chestnuts or blackberries or whatever you know there's just so much more food about in the countryside there's loads of food really when you start looking Alex and Peter are getting on with the job of deciding which farm animals to Cole now we've got see many Emily there's definitely too many so unfortunately the writing's on the wall for some of these old birds a chicken lays most of its eggs in the first three years of its life after that its productivity declines onic and that one there before grab her feet she's gonna flap if you've got both feet together she will flap and make a lot of noise but she'll be safe perfectly done beautiful quite red here red wattle and comb this is a you know classic sign of an older bird is very deep red and he's just those feet if you look at those feet you know look at a fight no energy you know she's got calluses on the bottom quite large calluses you can tell she's quite an old bird so you know that's a natural vertical come on em boy come on I'm sure there'll be something in here for you it wasn't just wild food that added to rural diets having more land meant country people were far more likely to reap the benefit of the government's dick for victory campaign Oh telly already here sorry mana farm gardener Terry Budd will help Ruth decide what to plant in the garden we've got this leaflet now from the Ministry of Agriculture encouraging us to grow some of our own veg Savoy's sprouts kales vegetables all the year round if you dig well and crop wisely the dig for victory leaflets were written to help gardeners get fresh produce every month of the year they were widely distributed or you could write to the Ministry and request one no sensible plan isn't it less fancy about it there's nothing you know exotic oh this is your basics through the year [Music] there are already some vegetables to harvest in the garden and Ruth's making them go as far as she can so I'm making a giant great big enormous huge several meals worth anything that isn't eaten as jus will be turned into soup later Ruth's stove is powered by paraffin but along with other types of fuel paraffin was rationed so cooking the stew for several hours would be a real waste there was a popular wartime solution that Ruth's keen to try I'm gonna make a hay box heat source just insulation but it does the job that you might think I'll say like her slow cooker so hey I'm making a really thick layer not just on the bottom of the box but up the sides of the box and eventually I'll make it in the lid as well it's all about keeping the heat in so the stood that I've got on when it's really thoroughly boiling and it does have to be thoroughly boiling then I can transfer it from there straight into here really very fuel-efficient I'm only doing the cooking for that first initial boiling study seal it all up and you've kept the heat in the heat can't escape so the heat stays there carrying on cooking slowly and gently the perks of living in the countryside didn't go unnoticed by outsiders strangers frequently turned up at farm gates looking for ways to beat the rationing system mark rude house is a historian who specializes in the wartime black market hello you know the chap who knows about all the dodgy dealings only yes where did that start secluded rural locations made the perfect base for black market activities well underneath here we have bread various things for our black market experiment here we've got red petrol this would have been used by the army dyed red by the Armed Forces to stop people stealing petrol which was rationed and in short supply the police would take a sample from your tank and if it was red they would know that you had stolen that petrol and so they could prosecute it so what we're going to do is take the dye out of this petrol so that we can put it in the tank of a car without risk of being caught there are lots of anecdotes about how people could get hold of this dyed petrol and remove the dye so I thought that we could have a go and see which of these proves the most have you done this before no and I don't think anyone has ever tried this kind of experiment since the 1940s the first method to be tried is mixing it with aspirin that's supposed to separate out petrol from the die do it yes was there much of this going on there is a surprising amount of fiddling about with petrol particularly on farms for example Billy Hill who was one of the big London criminals of the 40s he had a run-in on a farm in Hertfordshire which he used for Steve first storing stolen goods and also used it as a base for operations such as this one well maybe we've got the wrong brand name maybe it needs a bit of time while they wait to see if the aspirin works Ruth and mark try filtering some of the petrol through charcoal go on go on you do the honors you're the one who's been reading about this stuff oh I think we're getting something but for slower it's definitely better than the aspirin but it's the bit pink lastly they'll try sipping it through bread one of the methods of dealing with petrol this seemed the least likely one it seems such a waste of good bread waste of bread that's holding a lot of petrol memory work huh it's coming through oh so it is that looks clear to me you flip it does I can't believe that's worked my words I never thought that would work and but in some ways the cheapest and easiest of all the methods yes yeah if you've got the bread to waste yeah the course wasn't wasn't rationed with the tell-tale dye removed the petrol could be sold on the black market if you have this you have your loaf of bread you're well on your way to becoming what marketer yeah yeah pestering farmers up and down the country I'm trying to get them into your dodgy dealing ways absolutely you wicked man you [Laughter] anyone involved in making or selling food had opportunities to make a bit on the side butchers could be notorious black market operators me mug has brought Ruth to meet local butcher simon broad rib the Ministry of food has worked out speaking to various butchers what if they should be able to get off a carcass allowing for a bit of wastage but a skilled butcher like Simon here can make more joints off that carcass and the Ministry allows for oh it's keeping is keeping the trimming to a minimum nice and lean under the ration system consumers had to register with a particular butcher so shopping around was not an option many butchers felt a strong temptation to sell off parts of the animal that would usually have gone to waste let me show you the difference between like a wartime chop a big long bone all untrimmed to what the customer wants now this not lovely little lamb cutlet nice and meaty not too much bone hardly any fat to our wartime chop you see it's almost almost twice as long in that yeah I'll get more money for that well the customer would get less meat food let's put it that way right and a lot of your weekly ration you would take as the bone so it's really important if the customer wants a good cut meat they get to know Simon Simon likes them it changes the relationship between customer and retailer more like so the customers not always right the retailer's always right by including plenty of bone on their cuts butchers could ensure they achieved the weight of sales the Ministry of food was expecting and still have plenty of meat left over to trade on the black market you know got too many qualms then no no I deserve it yeah I'm working hard no qualms at all I'm finally making sacrifices in lots of other areas of life well you entitled a little bit of home alone you sent your sons off to war and yeah your daughters in the factory you're working extra shifts extra hours surely there should be a little bit of reward for all the extra work [Music] by the autumn of 1940 black marketeering was becoming widespread in the countryside at the same time ships importing food to Britain were being sunk by the Nazis this is the BBC home service among them was the HMS Jarvis Bay whose heroic self-sacrifice enabled the rest of her convoy to escape I would first like to mention the gallant action of the Jarvis Bay without one thought for their own safety her crew immediately attacked the Raider without one thought of defeating the enemy words failed to express the gallantry of the men aboard the Jarvis Bay the emphasize they cost a human life does make you think about the value of what they were carrying on those convoys doesn't it you know then if you've been wasting that if you've been doing something a bit dodgy you know meaning that more stuff had to come in then you're culpable many people in 1914 who had perhaps not taken the rationing system quite seriously may then have reflected back on severity of what they were doing hmm it's time to see whether Ruth's hay box has done its job [Music] well the best years all have reasons there's a boxes I'm really efficient on them yes viewers but let's feel right unless time as well T brought in from four corners of the Empire Peter thanks the brave merchants shippers and drink to that emergency [Music] with merchant ships taking a hammering throughout 1940 imports fell rapidly livestock farmers in particular felt the impact with imports of animal feed falling by over a third homegrown alternatives like silage now talk on a new urgency and the boys are ready to have a go at making it the first step is building an airtight container or silo for the sugar beet tops but there's some bad news we have the remnants of a sugar beet crop yes we've got hoof prints cow poo the copra Wars the cows have got into the field where the tops were kept and eaten them they've eaten all the green material and left us with the actual sugar egg feeder and they've had a good old snack on what is essentially their winter feed so they've raided the larder early haven't they they really don't understand this is all for their benefit yeah all you're gonna have to do is you're just gonna have to go out there with the size with a Forks and get some more material there was plenty of official advice about unorthodox ways to make silage I guess it's a measure of just how desperate the government had got that they were advocating harvesting nettles which is essentially a weaned but nettles are very nutritious good iron content to protein content they crop up and they just grow everywhere it isn't just scraps to go in the silo that the boys need together [Music] they must also forage for materials to make the structure itself all of the metal in Britain in 1940 of course should be used to build bombers fighter planes so we're gonna have to make dude basically scrap from the farmyard probably this a lot of work isn't it it's a heavy load work we need some help I think I should get down the labor exchange and see if we can't pick ourselves up a couple of land goals help us out with this because we're gonna need it the war time drive for food production meant extra labor was desperately needed an intense campaign encouraged women to join in the battle of the fields thousands responded and the women's Land Army soon became a feature of farms across the country [Music] historians Nicola Verdun and Caroline brassy have come to help build the silo a classic job for the indispensable land girls and this is Peter hi Chloe Caroline there are land girls for the day yeah so Nicola shall we get cracking on show you some of this tin out okay do that if we go grab some tops just stick in it when we finally built if we finally build it I know he's not enjoying this damn ground is he I don't think anyone's enjoying us back ground land girls worked at least 50 hours a week with full timers paid roughly two-thirds the wages of male agricultural laborers Nicola Verdun has written extensively on the history of women in the British countryside was there a clamour then to join the women's Land Army and certainly it was a very attractive proposition for for some women who saw it as a way to get out the city centres and to enjoy the outdoor life they may understand image of what farm work was like and of course the government propaganda and the posters and so were rather glamorous I think the reality when they got here was rather different I mean it must have been quite a steep learning curve then for for many of these young girls coming from the town to a completely sort of alien environment an alien set of jobs farmers and also a lot of women themselves had to be persuaded that they were both physically capable of doing the work and doing it Wow yeah um so there was quite a lot of prejudiced amongst the farming community well women improve themselves they proved that they were physically capable of doing the work that they were honest and kind of honorable workers so a lot of farmers were won over certainly a great story and we're incredibly indebted to you for your help today because otherwise I don't think we'd get this done in the time we have the number of women in work rose by over two million between 1939 and 1940 three and voluntary organizations also flourished growth is getting involved with the Women's Institute or WI and has roped in her daughter Eve to help with her first task food preservation what exactly is the WI well it's a women's organization that was very much part of that whole desire to do your bit and to try and sort out some of the problems that war had caused the population and food preservation was high on their agenda over 5,000 tons of food that would have just rotted on the floor and then eaten by wasps and things you can sort of feel you know every apple you pick is one of the eyes our Hitler they ain't gonna starve us out we're gonna sort it [Music] Ruth will collect apples from all over the farm then take them to a WI center to be preserved [Music] at the silo the girls of the Land Army are proving their worth okay this one's a bit shorter than that one doesn't matter about the length but the the camber will be the same right the internal circumference does that make sense I know he's strange language but not all women were accepted into his ranks an infamous rejection was that of london-born amelia king who tried to join the land army in 1943 Caroline Brasi a studied Amelia's case initially she was rejected from the land on me from serving because she was a black woman the woman who was recruiting lated the color of her skin suggested that it might be a problem and amelia was rejected four times who eventually she went to hell in pain and questions are raised in the House of Commons yeah and that's when it hit the headline Amelia's plight was taken up by the National Press the land army claimed that no farmer would employ a black woman but one farmer went out of his way to challenge this alfred roberts said well she's willing to work and happy to take her on say she said yes i would like to do that job but I need the Lango woman and ami employs me the line goes you know a matter of principle but she wanted them to take her on and of course the fact that had come forward undermined their argument that the president find her place because he prejudiced with the farmers say they took her on the story was especially famous at manna farm because Alfred Roberts was a neighboring farmer where are you here than in this photograph in the background somewhere his daughter Betty Rudd worked side by side with Amelia King on the land that you there yeah that's me so you're right behind the media and right behind her yes Betty your father was the farmer who gave Amelia King a job yes he was do you know why he did that well because he felt so strongly about it why she'd be refused to work it was the headlines and they every paper that particular time and nobody would accept her so he initially got hold of the phone number and phoned these people and said she certainly can come here Amenia came and she was a part of the gang she thinks she enjoyed her time here or she did and she was very good she and also the other girls were good to her you're only accepted her it was hard work yeah yeah I work here when you think of it looking back there you all said you know it seems like five years just went like that yeah because we were enjoying ourselves so much working and doing things for country hmm yes and growing food great food yes which is your central thing after her time in the Land Army Amelia King disappears from the pages of history it's believed she died in 1995 but her actions as a young woman helped to chip away at the prejudice in British society as wartime pressures forced barriers to be broken down [Music] although women were doing the same jobs as men they were still expected to run the home the Women's Institute advised their members to let nothing go to waste this great book come through from the WI thrift crafts we've got all sorts of things in here including what to do with feathers which considering we've just had to cull the chickens makes sense the WI put out wartime publications with a heavy emphasis on reviving old-fashioned rural skills using every feather off every burger Clark I mean people in the countryside been doing that centuries but it had fallen out of favor suddenly you didn't really need to in quite the same way things were more available in the shops you know and here we all are at the beginning of 40s suddenly happen to go back to this older more thrifty way and the WI they were just in pole position to be the ones to disseminate this knowledge into a much wider section of the population the book recommends using the chickens wing feathers to make dusters as well as being debate best feathers for feather dusters the wing feathers are almost a lot hardest to pull I mean you'd expect it really when you by far the biggest in toughest and you've got this nice strong quill at the bottom which is what makes them so good for the job it doesn't actually say in the book how you're supposed to make the feather duster it just says that it should so I thought I'd probably just sort of tie them with some thread and then my theory is I'll start with a little sort of like a posy or tuft to be the top do-do-do-do-do this is gonna work [Music] binding the feathers in a spiral makes a duster that will get into every crevice [Music] serviceable thank goodness for the WI little boxes with the silo built the team can start filling it but first they must make careful preparation to ensure the silage material isn't contaminated with soil otherwise unwanted bacteria will develop and ruin the taste of the cow's milk oh right pitchforks your work doesn't in there though do I stay in here now stay in there yeah and as Caroline forts it over with I'll help you put your for candy I have you were gonna shred it like an Italian trading grapes yeah [Music] so am i trying to kind of shift it is the traveling down the count's treading the material forces oxygen out of it which in turn allows the nutrients inside it to be preserved a bit like pickling it's actually very hard work I'm quite out of breath now but we're getting there it's getting higher although cyllage had been known about for centuries until the Second World War many farmers in Britain had never tried making it this really is at the forefront of 1940s farming all their lives farmers you see they'd been making hay and that was really very much more of an art form whereas making silage was really a science and it was a science that they didn't really understand so they were deeply deeply skeptical really the government wanted this to happen on every farm but the reality was it happened on very very few farms so we would have been sort of innovators of our age do you want it that far corner [Music] the Women's Institute preserving day has begun staffed by the ladies of the Hampshire WI [Music] throughout the war centers like this operated all over the country preserving thousands of tons of produce for the nation and Stamper is 2w eyes archivist and has come along to supervise proceedings I mean the sheer numbers of tens the sheer numbers of pounds it's huge we just found this one page here sixty eight and a half pounds of fruit forty one and a half pounds of sugar and that yielded 74 pounds of jam and jelly free for one day yeah but though the W I was famous for Jam making that wasn't the only preserving method at their disposal in 1940 home canning machines were donated to Britain from North America but home front housewives had never seen this technology before you don't hear much about home canning very much have you done it I haven't done it no really has anybody here ever canned any fruit bottle cans oh I hope we get this right there oops Ruth's about to put this machine into action for the first time since the Second World War line it up carefully chips in this it's in a groove actually it's quite easy so lock it in write a thunk and now I've got to turn the handle at least 20 times better one okay two-twenty did anything happen there so then this has got to be sterilized so this is what this other pan of waters for that's right we sort of cook it in the can after being peeled and cored the apples are covered in sugar syrup to make sure no oxygen gets in working closely with the Ministry of Food that WI sent their produce straight into the rationing system with no reward for themselves and all these people in here they would have been volunteers oh yes these women or other WI members would be coming in here from not in the morning till if I believe it so as a volunteer you know making a gift of your apples making a donation of all your time you get nothing back personally no it's your contribution as a country woman to winning the war [Music] okay Peter we ready with the molasses we are annex now this is another byproduct of the sugar beet in the street okay it's a bit like brown sauce this stuff that's really sweet but it was absolutely crucial this stuff to making silage so whereas sugar was rationed and in all other parts of the war of course the government was so keen for farmers to make silage that they gave them special dispensation to use this stuff [Music] molasses was seen as vital to the preservation process helping fermentation of the crop to begin the government encouraged all wartime farmers to make silage and though it never became widely popular levels of production are estimated by some to have reached a million tons the ladies of the Women's Institute are celebrating a successful canning drive together the WI and the land army engaged almost 600,000 women in the war effort in fact the two organizations were headed by the same person Lady Gertrude Denman who did everything she could to ensure they helped each other out in fact in this sum this copy of home and country which was the WI magazine lady Denman actually wrote a letter which she actually headed an appeal to farmers wives prejudice against a woman attempting to do a man's work dies hard asked sure enough in it but the progress of the land I mean the past year shows that it can be overcome and very practical to I mean she goes on in that letter to suggest that one of the ways that WI members can help is by inviting land girls into their houses to have a bath if the place where they're working hasn't got a bath yeah and she suggests they come as guests of the WI meetings and indeed that did happen and quite a few joined the WI yeah it's looking good see getting higher in tribute to their sisters in the field the ladies of the WI are rounding off the day with the land Army's official anthem back to the land [Music] mice against time this Peter yeah Lions can go faster [Music] makes you realize how hard work it was it's been a tough one but we're extremely grateful for your help with autumns bounty safely preserved the team are ready to face the winter and the shortages that wartime would continue to bring [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 227,568

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: fnbq7vNUUUw

Length: 57min 53sec (3473 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020