The Wartime Kitchen and Garden

memories of fading all those days so long when skies [Music] let's not forget how together we blow away the clouds to let the sun shine [Music] [Laughter] [Music] this morning the British Ambassador in Berlin ended the German government a final nuke stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of War would exist between us I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany I don't really know how I how I felt because I've never had anything to do with anything like that before so you sort of expected something drastic to happen almost immediately I think that it didn't uh I was out walking when the it was given out and I went back to find my sister in tears over the sink because she remembered the 1418 War so she wasn't very happy about things at all what was a lovely sunny day and I remember it was about 11 o'clock in the morning that war was announced well it was a lovely day it was a beautiful morning and I will remember the evening as well I know the fall would come busted into my bedroom at midnight and he said well what do you think about it now Chum and I said I don't think there'll be a war all cinemas theaters and other places of entertainment are to be closed immediately until further notice as from now no puta or Saran may be sounded except on the instructions of the police I know from one or two other men in that they said it was to to have to throw away perfectly good plants plants which had been tended for years and to see them thrown away on the fire Reaper on the compost eight it was the it was a period of great sadness Harry Dodson head Gardener at Hilton Gardens relives the Moment Of Heartache that faced many gardeners in 1939 a few miles away in her country cottage cook Ruth Mott prepares to cope again with the shortages of the wartime kitchen together they will show how the skills of the gardener and the cook fed the nation during five long years of war using the advice recipes and methods of the time they will return to the days when everyone had to make the most of what they could get [Music] at first people had no idea what to expect they feared the bombers would come at once they didn't nor did the shortages as the troops left for France many people believed it would be all over by Christmas okay [Music] give me a smile I can keep all the fire in my hot water [Music] people started calling it the phony War to sort of sum it up I know my uncle was talking to his employer and they were talking about what was going to happen in one thing in another and she said to him well you know Norris they've not picked sewage yet and I think that summed it up very well this unexpected reprieve gave people a chance to prepare themselves with government encouragement storing and preserving the Autumn Harvest took on a new urgency old skills were called up like drying apple rings now I'm cutting this into about six or eight Rings this is a nice Apple because it's soft and so it all dry out because that's the object of the maneuver and then we can keep these for the rest of the winter or quite a long time we're going also to light a sulfur candle and turn the jar up over it so that it will fill with fumes and then that will stop the Apple hopefully discoloring they bound to go a little bit Brown because of the drying out process put the jar over the top and leave it there until the camera goes out I have a saucer ready so that when the candle's gone out you can pop that over the top quickly to keep your fumes in and then we'll pop in the apple rings and give them a good Shake we don't use this method very much today because it takes quite it's quite a long process well that's that's enough for that so we'll quickly pop the saucer over the top to keep the fumes in and get our apple rings ready to drop in we want them to go in as much as we can singly trying to do them like that so that I don't lose too much stuff and then just drop them in one at a time would be enough lid back on and give them a good shape to make sure that they get enveloped with the cues and then they shouldn't discolor too much and then we're going to thread them onto these little sticks and put them in a very very low oven to dry out well you're on the very very low oven as low as you can get it just a bit below what we call milk pudding temperature or just about one or two just to keep it very low because they want to dry out very slowly which will take them about six to eight hours as a rule you know when they're done when they feel like leather because they've then got no moisture left in them at all and then they'll probably have crinkled a little bit but you can when you get them out you can sort of just straighten them between your hands and then you can let them you must let them cool off and then you can pack them into a tin it need not be airtight for using at a later date and then you will soak them then so that you put the moisture back in so that you should have had a nice Apple in or make a puree or something of them if no bombers appeared over the Skies of Britain you both certainly proud the coastal Waters foreign their presence brought home to the government and the country the fact that sixty percent of Britain's food was imported for a beleagued island it was a disastrous situation this revealed itself in unexpected ways and of one of the little things we missed most of all we offer a unique picture onions flourish in the warmer climate of France and Spain they were an early casualty of the restrictions on Imports they quickly disappeared from the shops but the country estates had always grown and stored their own onions from now on it's fairly straightforward you want as near as possible a couple of onions the same size and you wind the tops around like that they they need really about three inches of pretty same top so then you just put them around twist them like that those who didn't want to go quite where one wants them and that often happens but it it comes right in the end you want to keep keep the Rope going even the next ones will come so that they fill in that hole it dazed off by quite often on a wet day here around about this time of the year I've known two and three men in the shed doing these ropes of onions they used to be a little bit of competition between them and they do their own ropes at the end of the day a lot of people have got the idea that these are tied on good Garden Fashion a good old kitchen gardeners I've never seen any of them ever tie them on it was always used by this method I've been chattering and not paying too much attention to what I was doing and one or two of the old boys wouldn't have been very proud of this string it's not so bad foreign evacuation of children from the danger zones of England and Scotland carried on great credit reflects upon teachers and all those who have helped in this great work so many cities today are childless the children have taken laughter with them but though there must be heartbreak at each parting it is immeasurably better that they should have a greater chance of safety oh yes it didn't seem right to keep my child in town what am I going to do with myself here I don't know this is your crazy reserve and I'm sure you'll be quite comfortable here oh what a great little place among those evacuated in the first days of the war were mothers with young children Joyce and her small son Paul arrived from London Ruth like so many others must learn to share her kitchen go and have a look in the garden would you like a cup of tea no thank you I had one at the reception thank you if you had a woman in your house billeted on you as well as a child that's awfully difficult because it's very difficult for two women to share a kitchen I've talked to casserole in the oven so that you I mean you don't like sharing your stove for a start off that's sacred to the household um and how do you sort out the washing and and the husband's gone away you've got to do gardening and all the other jobs you had a long journey yes two days two days wherever have you come from well they put us on a train of eating Broadway if they're evacuated into your household that is your house and you don't take very kindly to sharing it with someone put a step in a hole for the night so you really sat up all night last night then yeah some of them made lifelong friends and and settled in very well and others didn't settle in at all well and it wasn't long before they began to drift back to London which was very understandable really and then we'll sort out the bits that we're going to do tomorrow I think that'll be best that sounds like Paul well he did go out into the garden didn't he is it that way yeah if you look through the window you'll probably see him pull we had a great memory of Sid who was the evacuee that my sister had and my sister had always kept a very strict table and you know they'd always had vegetables and everything which Sid didn't like at all and I remember this particular day we had bacon and with them parsley sauce and vegetables for lunch and sister was convinced that Sid wouldn't like parsley sauce but he knew all about that because he'd had it with eel poi oh with the gardens depleted of young men a new Workforce filled the Gap volunteers of the women's land Army says the Army Mr [Music] straight from typing pools and Shop counters the girls were interviewed given a brief training and sent wherever they were needed this is the Army Mr Green we like the barracks nice and clean you had a housemate to clean your floor but she won't help you out anymore do what the Bugler's command s they're in the Army and not in the van [Music] if you put your bicycle there I'll take you out into the gardens where your labors will be required all right the girls had to go wherever they was asked to go the boy I'm quite though that he had one or two very good ones and he spoke highly of them and I don't date that many many men found them extremely useful and would have been very very hard push to have kept up with the Gathering or crops and that sort of thing were they the aid of the uh the lad girls we get a few summer crops off of it and then we cross up some Autumn crops again a very useful border the recruits had no time to acclimatize to their new life there were crops half grown land at a lane fallow and derelict for years had to be brought into production [Music] head gardeners were forced to accept machines to replace their skilled staff The Sight and Sound of a tractor grinding its way along a manicured gravel path was for them a traumatic change a pool of tractors was created to help bring land into production at Chilton a derelict Orchard is to make way for vegetables foreign for food production or elected to turn your garden into glass houses over the food production you were expected to terminate available or 75 food stamp uh I think it was pegged at that because it was understood that that would date be the maximum that some of these Gardens would be able to turn out because of the sizes are the powers of that sort of thing [Music] that's right and behind us that's right that's it let's put this jug up there as the months of enemy and activity dragged on the nightly blackout became a more and more irritating restrictions I think we all like to draw our curtains the other side of the blackout so that your room looked cozy and it didn't look so dreary because blackout really was a dreary looking thing and then of course when you came up to bed at night you still had to have your blackout up so you felt so very shut in with it all the time [Music] out the Moon the biggest Grumble was reserved for the plans to introduce rationing within days of War breaking out a ministry of food was set up it was given powers to control the purchase and distribution of all Food Supplies [Music] instrument was the ration book issued to every man woman and child in the country well first of all you were told where to go and collect your ration books and they were dished out in our local Village Hall and you went and collected them and then you brought them home and you decided who you thought you would like to register with you registered with whatever if you're grosser you had to ask them if they would accept you possibly if you were a bad payer he perhaps wouldn't feel too happy about taking you um also you registered with your Butcher and uh you know then you just went to those each week and got what you were entitled to you couldn't if you didn't take your ration this week you couldn't put it off until next week and have a double ration thank you the older people told you that how lucky you were that rationing was going to be introduced so early because in the first world war it wasn't introduced until 1917 and all the early part of the war they used to go all over the place to find things if it was in the shops because it went impossibly to the town more than it did to The Villages so this was a very equal way of serving out even if it was small all right oh it will be a level well I think everybody thought they were hard done by in the country we felt they did better in the town and in the town they thought you did better in the country I mean we had access to rabbits eggs and perhaps drop more milk various things like that in the town of course they knew the minute that the fish was in the fish shop they had the advantage of curing for cigarettes which would only be in a very very small amount in the village will be a little slow in the glass houses of estate Gardens like Chilton thousands of ornamental plants had to be destroyed to make way for food crops but if like these climbing roses they took up little space they could be spared Harry digs the recently cleared bed to grow early cauliflowers houses were a great asset as they provided vegetables at the time of year when there was a shortage of fresh greens [Music] with so many evacuees arriving in the country accommodation for land girls was a serious problem many had to put up with crowded hostels unsuitable bosses and insanitary digs and is lucky she's billeted with a family in a nearby Market town [Music] her lodgings have a garden which she helps look after in her spare time the house backs onto a railway line a target for enemy aircraft so it qualifies for an Anderson shelter named after the Home Secretary Sir John Anderson the shelter quickly became the butt of wartime humor while we was arguing the tosford in the bride and bridegroom slipped off on the radi Moon oh there's a simple effective if somewhat leaky protection against all but a direct hit the covering of Earth was recommended as Extra Protection this also replaced the valuable growing space lost when the shelter was erected Annie spreads compost before planting trailing marrows the government condemned hoarding but encouraged stocking up the Larder with homemade preserves Ruth stores eggs for the winter well we've had these eggs given to us because the chickens are laying well at the moment so we're going to try and preserve these so that we can use them for cooking they'll also make a good omelette and scrambled egg but they don't boil terribly well so we're going to pop them into here having made the water glass already and I was always taught to put them in the pointed end down and then the yolk stays fairly Central into the middle if you do them the other way up it's not so easy and then we can put these into the water glass and then we can keep adding to them as we get the odd egg that we're not going to use and it's nice and fresh and we can pop it in so we hope to get the basket full eventually we should take the basket to the solution and lower in carefully from there with as little movement as possible so that you won't crack any of the eggs and that should be covered with water glass the bulk of Britain's eggs and chicken food was imported now with limited animal feed coming into the country it was the Dairy Farmer not the poultry keeper who got priority an egg shortage was clearly just around the corner [Music] alone with a letter in his hand he asked me if I posted in the Box for Fairyland I slipped it in the mail the war was not over by Christmas and many people were spending it far from their families despite there being Goods in the shops there was deep anxiety about what the new year would bring [Music] a little [Music] saves the string to do at the Christmas pudding [Music] they're lovely thank you [Music] my mother [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] on Sunday January the 8th 1940 rationing began barter sugar and bacon were the first items controlled two months later on March the 11th meat was added to the list unlike the earlier foodstuffs it was rationed by Price not weight the cheaper the cut the more you got those away then when you've got your Roof Mart unpacks the week's ration of meat for herself and the evacuees billeted on her Joyce and her small son Paul this is a little bit of um get which I should do up with vegetables and that but you must remember that this stuff will probably shrink so it's not as much meat as it looks [Applause] so you're trying to make as much of it as you can so we've bought this which I shall bone out and do differently tomorrow as if to reinforce the Gloom of rationing the weather in the first weeks of 1940 was bitter in Germany ordered an all-out submarine war against Merchant shipping bringing the danger of blockade closer grown food was now vital Garden advertisements were quick to link their products with the war effort clashes protect seedlings and bring on early crops but assembling them requires nerves of Steel from head Gardener Harry Dodson and his inexperienced land girl I was coming for you this is a nice job for a wet day after I showed you how simple it is when you've put them together like that just line them up with a pound with your hands otherwise when they're put together butted together and then they're pulled apart to attend to the plants another day it's liable to bust the ends of the panels off this goes on First and it's often forgotten I often forget it as many times as I've done it having got the two side panels together then these two bottom panel locks are put on and it's on these of course which depends all the stability it's an horrible noise when they're being put together but uh don't let that frighten you this is the dodgy bit getting this top panel on and this is where you mustn't get any nerves otherwise you get fidgety and you quickly break the pain of glass all right trim it up it's as simple as that and it's quite rigid when it's put together properly like that and when you're putting them down like that make sure you don't clang one against the other and don't put them anywhere where you're going to move on the grain because the chances are your step back and smash them you've got to be confident but firm and thinking what you're doing all the time I'm sure you're a master it it's an ideal job for a wet day it enabled a lot of people during the war to use them who'd got much much less glass of what we had here and what a lot of these estates had and it also enabled even people like ourselves here with the Omega glass to get much much more out of these other plots of land an ordinary open plot of land we could get three crops out of it with the aid of these classes whereas of course at the normal circular distances the most you could have hoped to have got was the two bit quick this you know isn't it like a food flesh but you can always get Fuller food details from food facts in the peppers and from the radio every morning at 8 15. so look out to soften the effects of rationing the ministry of food bombarded the housewife with advice but no amount of persuasion could reduce the Public's taste for butter everybody says I'm old-fashioned [Music] they kept saying you were better you know as a nation when we were at more than we've ever been but was that propaganda or wasn't it I've never ever worked that one out this is one kind of waste you can get round this kind of waste and this you want to watch out for and void think of ways to avoid waste food doesn't grow in the shops you know roof now faces the challenge of turning breast of lamb into a tasty dish I'm just going to take these little bones out here because we're going to put this in the saucepan today and try and do them cold with and then egg and breadcrumb it ready for tomorrow to make just a little change then we go along to this one these used to cost you about tuppence in old money years ago but I don't know they're more than that now I should save all these little bones because I should put them into the bottom of the saucepan and a few over the top we've got all the flavor that we can and then the juice I shall also save and make that into soup you've got to use everything you see you mustn't throw anything away keep very tight to the Bone so that you get it out with practically nothing left on it at all you won't get an awful lot of meat off of this but when it's done up with the bread crumbs and that it'll be quite tasty but it's a very time consuming job and that's why nobody wants to use it today that's it oh it was very valuable during the War I mean it was something that you purchased cheaply much cheaper than anything else and of course it was cheap meat you were looking for because you were rationed by money I'm just doing this so that it makes a cut so that when they Cooks this will shrink a little so it won't all cockle up you have to I've got to fit it into the saucepan so we should have to fit the lamb to the saucepan well we've got a few bones in there at the moment and then we can put the meat in on top of this because if you keep that in the bottom you've got a little bolster so and when the water goes in it'll cook in the steam more and it won't stick to the bottom of the saucepan more carrots onion to go in a bit of parsley for flavor and if you've got a bay leaf or a little bit of thyme or anything like that you can have that in as well pepper and salt anything that will give it a bit of taste drop of water not too much because we don't want to join it because it should set if left overnight with a little jelly in it and not want to cook for about an hour and a half on a very low heat ladies and gentlemen welcome late night [Applause] well I suppose really we used to disguise things as much as possible and always said don't uh tell anybody what they've eaten until they've eaten it but you don't fool people as easy as that you know not really I don't think to go with the lamb Ruth has chosen something really filling do these leaks then for this leak pudding show you what to do no difficult as you like to make it no we don't want all this up here so if we take this off about here that piece can go over there this you'll have to take off quite low because it's getting a bit late and seasoned for leaks at the moment so and then it's into four so we do them through again foreign to lengths of about an inch they don't always go quite straight so we'll put those into there to be washed and they'll want a good wash I'll leave you with this one and the knife don't cut your fingers off oh I think everybody tried everything that came out I mean you've got your kitchen front that was broadcast every day you've got leaflets of different things you always looked at them leek pudding with potato and suet crust from food facts for the kitchen front so we want eight ounces of self-raising flour to save on the fat ration the pastry is made with flour suet and potato thank you [Music] and then we'll have two ounces of suet now we've got two ounces of grated potato the potato will help you save your some of your fat ration towards some perhaps something else later and we've put a cake or something it's a very small ration so we're trying to eke it out by using potato you can either use raw potato or mashed and it should make for quite a nice light pastry oh well there's many problems using potato you've got to grate very quickly and when you add it to the flour you want your water your basins and everything ready to work with because it's discolors so quickly it'll go a dirty gray brown mainly because you haven't watched the starch out of it but we want that left in because that's where the goodness is foreign this is the idea of having the margarine industry because it all helps hold it up just let the air out I tell you they'll all tell you you shouldn't do that but Ruth does it and she shuts it up again and nobody knows any different okay that's it now we're ready to roll out the top how are you getting over the Lakes Joyce right we'll have them in now then please and then we can if you're ready yeah it's lovely now if you've gone through all these um steamer to about up to the first screw hole that'll be fine for steaming as good in [Music] we've lifted enough water with these to keep them moist these are boiled down when they're inside so you'll you'll um you know get quite a bit of crust around it which is help fill you up in Wartime plenty of suet crust right in order to seal the edge of this with we make that fit a little fit with the time Roots finished put a little piece of greaseproof pound or some old margarine paper we don't want the cloth too dirty because we don't like washing dirty clothes that's it and then if we had a nice leg of lamb it'd be nice but we haven't rationing reduced consumption but only a huge increase in farm yields could replace the loss of imported food ironically this led to a shortage of something a gardener had always taken for granted once the war broke out but got underway the manure was an asset to the farmers to put on the land it was going to increase their crops which would increase their turnover which was what they required and they were reluctant to part with it to small people as on the other end of course they didn't want to play a bait with a cart load here the cart load somewhere else it was a shame but it was it was one of the tragedies and of course it it brought Compass banking into the gardens in a garden the size of Chilton with its four acres compost heaps had to be constructed on the grand scale if they were to maintain the fertility of the soil [Applause] [Applause] we're going to have a layer of this Garden spent crop refuse at the moment and we want a layer about six inches deep and trodwell firm or as firm as we can get it and then we're going to put a layer of the straw on as the eats being built you must keep each layer well trodden and you must keep the sides like a wall so you must put some really solid material around on the outside and then build the middle in but tread as near as you can to the outside of the Heap all the time as you're building up because we want it when we it's finished like a box we don't want it to to slip out one side or slip out the other side or the top to slip off and fall all over the show it's essential to wet thoroughly each layer as dry vegetation won't rot down it's then sprinkled with a handful of sulfate of ammonia to supply extra nitrogen to speed up the process if this was not available the ministry suggested using sewage sludge the layers are dressed with lime this neutralizes the natural acids which hinder decomposition I think in due course it'll be a good Heat by July another eat like that I'm just going to cut this into six little portions and then into the flower the breast of lamb has been cooked for an hour and a half and allowed to cool Ruth now starts on the last stage pop it into the egg which will stick on probably have to push it a little bit because they don't always dry out quite straight and into the bread crumbs and cover it up nicely and that should make us a nice little crust when we've fried it the fat we're using today is some little bits of fat that I've collected up over the week from different bits of meat and stuff that we've cooked and we've got it all into a basin we've rendered it down and stirred it all up to make it look alike and we're going to cook the laminate today because we want to save as much of our that ration as possible to do other things with Joyce would you like would you like something smells good I think it'll be all right mind your fingers weren't you because it's well I'll use the clothes all right then I'll dish straight up out of the pan okay all right start putting plenty for me please oh I don't know about they're being too plenty have to have what you're getting like the children like it I'll put that little bit back on the stove when you add that if you're still hungry it will have a little bit more [Applause] I rather like the leek pudding because I think it's something that you could use today really and you know if you've got a nice lamb dish and you wanted to bump it up and make it seem a bit more eat pudding and be an ideal thing to do it with this is the BBC home service here is a special news quality Denmark has been invaded by German forces and Norway is at war with Germany as the war edges closer the beauty of the conservatory must be sacrificed but Harry preserves some of his favorite Glasshouse shrubs by planting them in nearby Woodland this afternoon here we've been planting some trees which have been used in the glass houses for several years but now the period we're running into I'm afraid is not going to run to the labor of looking after them it it's an economy run which I'm afraid we've all got to face and when you think of the collection that was here there was rhododendrons and there's Alias and this sort of thing the prunus are quite able to look after themselves and they can come out here and been years to come somebody will still be able to cut Bloom off of them but of course they won't be able to force it like we've done like the shrubs people now had to learn to fend for themselves a growing shortage of eggs drove householders to keep chickens in their back Gardens at her Billet Annie helped by Joyce takes delivery of six pullets their Rhode Island Red Cross White Wine Dot and are at the point of lay step all right hey Annie there's a neck in there backyard poultry Keepers were advised to get their stock from reliable breeders established hatcheries or business boom enjoys if you're up in the gate right and as soon as I get one I have to ask it to close it up quickly come on oops okay when eggs were rationed a year later those who kept chickens had to give up their egg coupons before they could buy any poultry food next one oh this is a big one yeah she doesn't want to come out does she killed with me tonight okay [Music] thank you with April giving way to May the news from Europe got Bleaker Winston Churchill as first Lord of the admiralty had long been Waging War at Sea now he warned of imminent danger on land it seems rather hard when spring is caressing the land and when after the rigors of winter our fields and Woodlands are Reviving but all our thoughts must be turned and bent upon Stern our war and today this Saturday so far nothing has happened on the sea or in the air but more than a million German soldiers including all their active divisions and armored divisions I've drawn up ready to attack at a few hours notice all along the frontiers of Luxembourg of Belgium and of Holland Churchill was a god gentleman who was allowed out about I said oh I think in all honesty he loved the war but it's a good thing he did because of course he was our Salvation were they the shadow a day he's later Hitler's armies smashed their way across the frontiers of Belgium and France in a series of lightning strikes they broke through the Allied defenses Joyce hurry up because when is going to be on the Wireless in about a couple of minutes home the crisis on the continent toppled the government of Neville Chamberlain Winston Churchill now came to power at the head of a national coalition government I speak you for the first time as prime minister in a solemnower for the life of our country of our Empire of our allies and the bubble of the cause of freedom a tremendous battle is Raging in France and Flanders the Germans oh I think we all fought so much of Winston Churchill uh he was a great sort of morale booster and sometimes he didn't always have pleasant things to tell you so that you when he was going to broadcast you didn't really know what you were going to hear but he'd always got a wonderful uplift at the end of a speech to sort of make you feel good I'm yourselves and be ye menabella and be in Readiness for the conflict for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altars as the will of God is in heaven even so let him do [Music] the German Advance forced the British army to retreat to the beaches of Dunkirk a massive rescue operation brought many of the troops home to a country facing the prospect of a long and bitter Siege for Vega has called The Battle of France is over the Battle of Britain is about to begin [Music] when we look to a dog now it has come to us stand alone in the breach and face the worst that the tyrants might and enmity can do bearing ourselves humbly before God but conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose we are ready to defend our native land Against The Invasion by which it is threatened in June 1940 Hitler knew he had to gain command of the Skies over Britain before he could invade this meant destroying the fighter stations that protected London [Music] thank you throughout the summer workers in gardens like Chilton carried on with a deadly battle raging in the skies above them [Music] [Music] the airfields were almost destroyed when Hitler's bombers unexpectedly turned their attention to London gave a vital breathing space trying to commands Victory on September the 15th finally persuaded Hitler to call off The Invasion during these anxious weeks people on the ground were Keen to help in any way they could help please Ruth Mart in her kitchen receives a visit from volunteers collecting aluminum pots and pans to turn into planes this was the brainchild of newspaper Tycoon Lord Beaverbrook minister of aircraft production everybody including the royal family lawyerly handed over their saucepans get rid of that [Music] that one isn't much good either they can take that one and I think this aluminum jug and that'll do for today if I find anything else we'll let them know all right all right Ed everybody Russell Brandon tried to find something because you felt that you were helping the war effort you know you sort of felt that it wasn't going to terminate unless you've done something to help it the appeal yielded a thousand tons of metal how much actually went into building planes is uncertain as much of the aluminum was of low grade for the housewife it meant yet another shortage fuse or aluminum saucepans again until after the war [Music] is at Sea the minister of Agriculture renewed his efforts to get people to grow their own food today we begin a new dig for victory campaign Mayors from all parts of the country took part we carried it through during an air raid one of the many London has been having today but we were all agreed that a successful big for victory campaign this Autumn was one of the best answers to Hitler's attempt the damage our overseas Food Supplies and interrupt our Communications originally called grow more food the campaign now became known as dig for victory its famous logo immortalized the Spade work of London Gardener wh MacKay time continent sends us over a quarter of a million tons of vegetables a year Hitler has cut them off for the moment we must now grow them ourselves every day is some sort of way we almost lend a help in hand oh with a garden in Spain join the big parade that is March into that land feel your muscles getting bigger keep on pushing in the spine turnip tops potatoes and carrots cannot Sprout without your eyes [Music] radishes and onions cannot Sprout without your eyes don't be a lot of mugs never mind the bugs [Music] ding ding double digging the first operation is the job in hand this week Roy hay will be there with advice and is now up to Michael standing on today's team of diggers to report progress to you from Radio allotment and that perhaps a little bit overemphasized for your benefit is what digging sounds like on a microphone I thought of digging a tenerate which is still I'm afraid a bit on the laborious side and that fault that you heard is in the blistering but determined hands of Raymond glendenning the grunt was genuine I can assure you such expressions of Anguish were soon shared by thousands of people as they turned their lawns into vegetable plots traditional gardeners like Harry Dodson recommended double digging as the most effective way to achieve this painfully it also involved double the effort first the trench one spit deep is excavated then the ground at the bottom of the trench is forked over well that's our Beginnings Early before we start to remove this two feet of soil and one feet deep over onto that we have to go back two feet otherwise we will get either counter from where we started because you've got to move each bit back two foot I understand if Annie seems a little confused it's not surprising books leaflets and films were all devoted to the complexities of double digging through it early isn't it if you've got to throw it right this is two feet forward all the time otherwise you end up without a trench honestly David that should forget about who's there yes you're all right you should be a little bit don't be all bad so this is going to go at the back yeah we've got the shovel this eight now this is where it needs to keep it really hold your job all the time otherwise you don't get it level [Applause] and we started off in a reasonable bit of level Gray and we want to end up the city yeah so it's got to go from there over to Warehouse so if we were thinking of the long-term policy we would have dug the dealer into that bottom but those who recommended it did at least warn against overdoing things half an hour will be quite sufficient until the muscles are accustomed to the unusual exercise in the larger Garden mechanization made the job easier although two-wheel tractors were notoriously difficult to handle when these machines first came out they were very unwieldy and they were known by lots of people as absolute man killers and such as the machine as we've got here today uh there's no reverse gear in them and I used to say being cheeky that they needed a quarter of an acre to turn around at the edlin because it took a very strong man to to pull them around and if you stopped and lifted the rain it was a very heavy and tiring thing and to carry that on throughout the day it made you very tired indeed and the finish of course was was amazing to anybody that was brought up in gardening as I was and under old people who've never had seen any other than the Spain and the fork the finished product was was very very rough indeed alongside the dig for victory movement the men from the ministry of food pursued their campaign with equal relish their boss Lord Walton was another frequent broadcaster as you have just heard it is to you the housewives of Britain that I want to talk tonight and I'm going to be very practical and a bit personal too first you mustn't waste any food we want all the ships that we can get to carry munitions and I tell you in played in direct language that you are risking the lives of our fighting men if you you're a waste of food takes up extra shipping space now don't tell me that you never waste a thing Lord Walton has been brought into the government because of his considerable experience in running a chain of department stores his friendly Mana earned homely turn of phrase established him in the mines if not always the hearts of his listeners sugar now now really I've heard a lot about sugar Relic can't you cut it down in Wartime I have done I'm well below the ration a t takes up a lot of space now here's a new slogan for the kitchen front when for each person and none for the pot in Wartime let's have the ships instead under pressure from Lord Walton the BBC started the kitchen front a series of daily broadcasts about cooking the recipes proved popular and were eventually published as a book anything you want in particular yes we must have the butter today Ruth has chosen the wartime chocolate pudding the recipe uses syrup and cocoa both still unrationed it also includes carrot often used to save on sugar if you see anything else you think we ought to have that's not on the ration bring it along right see you later bye I'm just grating this up to finish it up and I think I will have got about two teacuples here by then and that should be enough to go in there and put in for today um carrot basically was used a lot in the wartime as a sweetening agent so we've cut down the sugar to one ounce and so we're going to put in two ounces of margarine and the one ounce of sugar which we've got ready and we're going to just beat that up until it all mixes in nicely together a minute because we've got it nice and soft into that we're going to put our two cups of grated carrot a teacup we're using so if anyone wants to make it now that's equivalent to four ounces one tea cup and we have no egg in this pudding either so we've got to use extra raising agent tonight we wind this all up together cooks are allowed to take it off the back of their hands with the fingers into that we're now going to put the four tea cups of flour we'll just add it by degrees about a cup at a time and then it works it'll be easier to work in followed by a good Heap tablespoon full of cocoa a little bit for luck a teaspoon full of bicarb which we'll give it a raising agent and some baking powder so this will help make it puff up in the basin would make a very light pudding actually I think it will now have a couple of tablespoons of treacle will be fairly generous with it because it's not on the ration but I expect it will be eventually and I should now change spoons because it would work in better with this one that's got a cut in action and half a pint of milk it may not take all the half pint so we'll see how it goes I should only add a drop of milk at a time because all flowers don't absorb the same amount of moisture so that we might be able to save a little drop of that milk for tomorrow a cup of tea foreign then we just put it into the basin and when that's cooked you won't find any of that carrot if it seems for about two hours that should take it and make it very nice there we are put the margarine paper that we've saved carefully over the top and then we'll tuck it down round and then we'll steam it with that steams for about two hours [Applause] chocolate puddings were a luxury that could be ill afforded later in the war by 1942 syrup and cocoa were both rationed now homegrown vegetables were going to be the Mainstay of a family's diet but digging up the back Garden would barely produce enough local authorities were encouraged to provide allotments the hunt for land produced some strange settings for a Cabbage Patch including the moat of the Tower of London we've got over a million allotments now I want another half million by next spring now some of you may think that growing vegetables is too difficult it really isn't every Council Office will help you there are lots of knowledgeable people about to lend you a hand the elves killed allotment holders County Horticultural superintendent Arc superintendent gardeners privates and public ity let's have a look at this problem you've got a word he is active isn't he well we've got to find the run in it's no good thinking we can set the Trap there he's got to run somewhere which it uses do you want a stick or a rod the back Garden of the house where Ann isability it has been invaded by a mole with no knowledge of how to deal with the hidden enemy she's asked her employer Harry Dodson to help her yes that's it so that work he's very deep very deep gotta find the old late with you fingers in case you've muffled it he's got a clear hole now right through yeah that should be all right it's quite simple to set the Trap look all right yeah place the track down in you want the tongue nearly down onto the to the bottom of the run because it's that tongue that he's going to knock out a position which will trap him now these leaves are to hold the soil clear there must be a clear run through the bottom because they always have a clear run in and you must keep that with a trap in there clear the most important thing of all is to fill the hole in at the top because there must be no daylight show through if there's daylight showing through he won't have it here Dodge back it leads very often a very gentle hand to to put that on there and very light soil but I think you'll find that will be all right now when you come tomorrow morning if that trap is eight wide these two pieces or eight wide eight torbadia if you pull the trap out with any luck at all your little friend should be on the bottom if not I'll have to come back and try and find another running [Music] be the best course of action [Music] before the war much of the country's stocks of seed came from abroad when the bulk of these supplies were cut off gardeners were encouraged to save their own Unfortunately they had to be selective cabbage and cauliflower produced inferior seedlings but others like leek gave reliable seed it would be late August early September before the seed pod would actually begin to crack open the cost of seeds soared by the end of the war it had reached four times its pre-war level despite the efforts of the amateur Gardener most seeds still came from the large companies who had been forced to expand home production quoted up brother seed you hug them up somewhere dry and the capsule pulp to the seed fellow it was a bit fussy there was a but uh when things was hard to come by and that sort of thing if you had a good stock of leak and onion it was worth doing tomorrow [Music] 1940 saw an unprecedented boom in weddings Dunkirk had brought the country's young men back home and in spite of an uncertain future ahead of them many couples felt at the right moment to get married [Music] the cake was still the centerpiece of the wedding but traditional ingredients were hard to come by one marzipan substitute was made from soya flour and almond Essence mixed with water and margarine and just give that a good beat up now that's getting nice and ready to cool down it's too soft to handle to put onto the top of the cake at the moment to put it onto a fruitcake for Christmas or a wedding you'd only do it about a week beforehand and then put it onto the cake it goes on drying out so that if you did it longer than that you'd have a very hard top to your cake the family was entitled to an extra food allowance for each guest invited but the amounts were small and so was the cake didn't ever get Beyond a 10 inch and that was quite a big one the most popular size was about an eight inch cake tin which you know did and you only cut out little slithers it wasn't a slice so it was only about a little portion of about an inch by an inch oh goodness [Music] but the heaviest blow came with the sugar order of August 1940. this for bad the placing of sugar on any cake after baking [Music] good night the confectioner's art was replaced by a concoction of cardboard and plaster foreign well I had a cover like this for my wedding cake my grocer ordered it for me in the village but I had no idea that it was going to be a cardboard cover when it came so that was a great surprise I kept it for many years because I also used it when I made wedding cakes and it had a little sort of Arrangement on the top but tied on with ribbon so I was able to undo the ribbons take the top off put a stalk over the top or a bow of pink ribbon if it was a 21st birthday cake or something like that so it was a very versatile piece of equipment this when we look by to a dark and stormy skies [Music] below the peaches in the glass house at Chilton Gardens rows of spring cabbage make sturdy progress growing this catch crop of early vegetables allows head Gardener Harry Dodson to save the peach trees from being grubbed up as a wasteful luxury [Applause] a few miles away in the back Garden of the house where she's billeted Chilton's land girl Annie plants marrows on the Anderson shelter but for many in 1941 this crude structure was more than an extension of the vegetable garden it was all that stood between life and death thank you after calling off his plans for Invasion Hitler switched to a sustained bombing campaign first London and then the other cities were pounded with devastating ferocity I couldn't remember the fires um when London was burning that shell for miles of course that was a terrific thing Matt weren't safe whether you were at the Docks or whether you were out on the Downs or wherever you were because if the planes were going back and they hadn't got to where they wanted to and the Flack going up was bad they just unloaded their bombs and went but we weren't lucky here I suppose from the point of that we were out in the country and we were quite a way out of the towns I can't really say that here in this Village we suffered too much then as the dust began to settle strange new sights emerged from the rubble stream wastelands during their off-duty hours members of the Tottenham fire brigade could be seen manhandling groups of pigs among the bombed out buildings in common with their Country Cousins they'd formed a pig Club in return for giving up their bacon ration buying the pig food and looking after the animals the members got a supply of bacon well beyond the ration everyone was urged by the ministry of food to save kitchen waste Joyce the young evacuee billeted with Ruth Mott puts the vegetable peelings in the special Pig bin well it was the most important person about really because it adds up all your scraps and you sort of thought eventually that you were going to have a nice meal off of it and some rashes and some different things the pigs were killed by an authorized slaughterman but many Housewives had to overcome their squeamishness to butcher the resultant carcass brought up in a large country kitchen it's nothing new to Ruth Mott today she makes Brawn from a pig's head the most peculiar thing about it really is the fact that you can use every piece of the Pig I mean there's no wastage to pick at all the only thing you basically can't use oh the pig is squeak I like Brawn but I do like to have made it myself I wouldn't eat anybody else's I like to know that Izzy has been cleaned out properly and his nose has been blown and you know that his eye has been taken out I usually soak it overnight with a handful of salt which gets any sort of congestion of blood where it's been killed that comes out and then give a good wash off and then put it into the saucepan and with carrot onion bay leaves perhaps a few peppercorns sprig of thyme anything that will give it a nice flavor and then cover it with cold water bring it very slowly to the boil and boil it usually will be ready in about three hours but if you can tell I mean you can put a fork in it or when it begins to come off the bone then it's nicely cooked [Music] foreign because we only had half a head so we've skinned that and we'll chop that up to go into the the brawn as well and with that we also boiled a little bit of shin to give it a little bit more meat because pork heads Pig's heads are very very fatty so they're very very rich so you have to put something else with them to try and make it more well digestible well you just put the head in its right position and start from the back of the neck it doesn't work so well the other way but then you'll get this nice stretch of skin and if you 've cooked it nicely you should be just be able to run your fingers underneath it and lift it very carefully off we don't want to take any fat or any meat off with it because we want to keep it all as intact as we can and that is the best way to do it and don't let it get too cold before you try to do it otherwise it's adheres to the head and you can't move it so you want it really almost as hot as you can handle it now we know that this isn't the um stock that's reducing will be nice because my hands are sticky and that tells me there's a lot of gelatine in the head so we can't have any bother setting it into the Basin when we've just chopped it up as fine as we need it well I love doing it it's great there's lots of worse things to do than this as long as the chitlins are much worse than this I assure you we're now going to pop it into the bowl which has been stood for about an hour in very cold water which seems to make almost like a skin round the bowl so that it will turn out nicely and I like mine done this way because I don't like too much jelly in it the gel is very nice but it's the meat you really want you see too many lumps of fat together just push them around outside somewhere that's it and we're just going to strain some of the reduced stock down into here and what I do with mine I've got to do that so that you can hear it Globe nicely down to bottom and then fill up again till it comes up to the top of the meat and then that can go into the Larder and set itself and that should make you a nice meal hens and rabbits were very adaptable to life in the back Garden and his Six Bullets have now settled into their new home the popularity of chickens soared with the start of egg rationing with each person's allocation being less than three eggs a month the thought of a regular supply of fresh eggs became very attractive by the end of the war over 10 million households were keeping hens in their back Gardens eggs joined the list of Commodities brought into the country under the lend lease agreement with America this allowed President Roosevelt to authorize Aid on a have now pay later basis I think the eggs were the one thing that was the worst of at least land because they took such a long time to get here very often so that they were really stale when you got them they used to go off with a bang sometimes like a time box ships that carried food were increasingly vulnerable despite air cover and sailing in Convoy U-Boat attacks intensified in April over a hundred ships were lost [Music] to make the best use of scarce materials and produced a reliable General fertilizer the government introduced the standard mixture Harry uses it on the potato crop the vastral grow more fertilizer was a fertilizer that brought eight as an highly publicized during the war and it was a good general purpose fertilizer especially for vegetables and fruit it was three of the sulfate of ammonia two of the superphosphate are one of potash and that was a jolly good mixture herbs helped flavor many wartime dishes Ruth has a good supply of parsley in her back Garden it provides a colorful garnish for the brawn parsley you wanted thank you take that back then on your way give it a little bit of color actually I think it'd be all right we'll try it anyhow smells nice not much jelly on it it's there no well I didn't put too much jelly on because I like it when it's it's more meaty I'm gonna try a piece of this yes please it'll eat nicely it looks nice how about that start with okay when you think of what it looked like yesterday when we started working on it got news for you we've got another Basin pulled in the ladder better like it then haven't I with German planes ranging widely over the country incendiary bombs were a constant Danger many households kept a stirrup pump handy to tackle The Blaze the raids on the cities continued unabated on May the 11th London received its worst night of bombing but even amid the suffering Spirits could be lifted you comes Kew Gardens lost little of its pre-war Beauty troops on leave with their sweethearts and londoners battered by nightly raids could find a moment of escape from their troubles amid the tropical plants and flower beds anything to these visitors the big the big change was the large number of Network in the grounds [Music] you [Music] I'm the wrong every year lunchtime at Chilton and Annie goes to fetch her Sandwich Box she knows there's a good chance it will contain cheese it was valued by the ministry of food as a source of protein needed for building and repairing muscle tissue so while the standard ration was one ounce a week all those engaged in heavy work were given a weekly allowance of eight ounces making sandwiches palatable was a constant headache I know a one period the landlady said to me do you like beetroot which I did and I said yes and I I had beetroot beetroot beetroot and so would just day after day until I got that fed up with it first of all I started taking the Beats related or something which is I did the end I had to tell a low ball beetroot please then in June 1941 came one of the turning points of the war at four o'clock this morning Hitler attack and invaded Russia so now this bloodthirsty gutter snipe must launch his mechanized armies upper new fields of Slaughter we are resolved to destroy Hitler and every Vestige of the Nazi regime from this nothing will turn us nothing we will never polish we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gangs to help Russia Britain had to produce more than ever before Growers were pressed to increase their yield of staple crops potatoes and weeds for bread blight was the great scourge of potatoes and Harry makes up a fungicide to combat it overnight he's dissolved copper sulfate in water the next ingredient is the soda crystals which are going to be dissolved in this bucket of clean water again it is rain water it gives one a better spread when we start to spray [Applause] and then we all when it's mixed together makes the jelly good prevention cure for a potato blight foreign this old recipe produces a spray known as burgundy mixture its name comes from its Discovery in France as a treatment of mildew on vines [Music] give me a lift under my shoulders [Applause] probably up thank you Amy well I'm on my way and you can carry on with your rowing if you will please foreign sprayer is very heavy to wear it's a burden some good equipment that he doesn't fit nicely uncomfortable to you that coupled with the weight makes it after a time very uncomfortable at about an hour to two hours at the maximum is the length of time that I would care to use it a guy you must remember in those pre-war days there was no restriction what poisoned you was using or anything there was no law and order that you had to dress up like a space man before you went out to do it so you were dated just your shirt as as I am today and after quite a short space of time it cut into you quite a bit foreign 1941 proved to be a good year for potatoes there's lots of potatoes about now and pre-war prices too that's the boy have a second healthy good health deal here's Spud in your eye a lot of effort went into persuading people to grow and eat potatoes The Humble Spud became a national hero here's the man who plowed the field here's the girl who lifted at the yield here's the man who deals with a clamp so millions of Jaws can chew and champ that's the story and here's the star potato peat eat up Tata [Music] as he goes all the kids [Music] take them home tomorrow have them in the jacket or eat them pay your eyes [Music] for the Hospital [Music] appointment with fear this is your Storyteller the Min black here again to bring you another Placid evening in our Far Side series appointment with fear one enterprising collection of recipes gathered together contributions from famous people Agatha Christie submitted one entitled mystery potatoes [Music] spoonfuls of cream a little margarine 10 anchovies bake the potatoes in a moderate oven then cut them in half remove insides and mash them with the margarine chop up the anchovies and mix them in add cream and pepper and salt to taste return mixture to empty potato skins dab on top with margarine from Brown in a hot oven [Music] very very slowly you begin to realize it's a room you've never seen of storing potatoes is tricky too cold and they freeze too dry and they shrivel too light and they turn green too hot and they sprout clamping was the answer the potatoes were shot up on this wad of straw as they were brought up uh picket fashion like the roof of a house up to the height of of roughly about three foot six and then a good lot of straw or bracket in some cases was placed over that to the depth of all those tofoot and then a foot of soil was packed over that and they was quite safe in that sort of conditions right around until February but an old drain pipe allows the potatoes air to breathe it would be a gang special to do what we're doing and they were real bastards at it so they build much bigger clamps oh yes I see them almost Mrs mobs have got the hay thank you oh that's nice that's Tinker Taylor hey straw or hay will also put to good use in the kitchen with the Revival of another old practice the hay box of our dishes to carry on cooking after they'd been taken off the stove um for me some handfuls of not too much that's right because we've got a packet a bit in the bottom just to start off with although the cushions nicely in the bottom thank you this is just sort of an improvised one that will do the trick and then I want to do some that way in that way because the grass has got a thick end and a thin end and then it'll keep it pumping into like otherwise we'd get any air in it won't stay nice one more piece and then I think I can put the saucepan in then will it cook yeah providing we um uh boil it up well for about three quarters of an hour beef so that it gets heated right through because it I only go on cooking with as much heat as you've got here you see so we pack that into there and then if we pack the rest of the hay around here tight fitting Nest provides the insulation which conserves the Heat you can do porridge in that like this as well really oh yeah rice pudding and anything that wants a long slow cooking will do fine like this save on fuel then oh yes that's what the part of the object is isn't it and that cooks while you're gone to bed by late summer marrows and assertions Trail luxuriantly over Annie's Anderson shelter oh bus is always late I felt hungry will you start and play the table then and I'll go and see today hold to a box and see how we're doing over here a wartime instruction book lists the advantages of the hay box the cheapest cuts of meat are rendered tender no nourishment is lost no food can be overcooked or burnt and the flavors are much improved by the slow cooking oh peruse and Joyce there's a hot dinner to look forward to rice pudding mutton dressed up as mock venison but that night There's No Illusion about the news Japan long threatened aggression in the Far East began tonight with air attacks on United States Naval bases in the Pacific messages from Tokyo say that Japan has announced a formal declaration of war against both the United States and Britain when we look back now two years gone by to a dark and stormy sky [Music] 1942 was a drab year people needed any lift to the spirit that color and flowers could give the worst of the blitz was over but the war dragged on with no apparent end in sight at Chilton Harry Dodson has assured the survival of the herbaceous border by planting vegetables among the flowers while beyond the Garden Wall new uniforms and new sounds were to be seen and heard [Music] the Americans brought with them a world of Plenty in their PX shops they could buy luxuries the British had not seen since the start of the war cigarettes chocolates and coffee filled the shelves like an Aladdin's cave company [Music] Mariah let her have what we have be thankful to get it but little of this came the way of the average British family producers at the BBC used comedy sketches to make wartime recipes more palatable the buggins family popular from pre-war radio were enlisted I know and her evacuate Joyce tune in to the kitchen front five ounces of plate toast a pint of water there is one thing they ain't rationed yet so Grandma you'll make me lose my thread where was I five ounces of flaked oats and I find to water then there's off a leak one teaspoon full of mixed herbs and one teaspoonful of salt two ounces of leftover meat cut in slices two ounces of cheese and one pint of salt four kind of sauce would you make it with three ounces of national flour and a kind of vegetable stock or water and the two ounces of cheese sounds all right what are you going to do with that lot will you put your flaked out and the leaves and the seasoning and the mixed herbs and the water in a pan and bring it to the Box boil it put it six 20 to 30 minutes then you turn it onto a flat plate and let it cool when it's cold cut it into small shape and sandwich the coal meat in between the shapes then you arrange them in a flat dish and pour the cheese sauce over you grill it or brown it in the oven that sounds very tasty very tasty indeed if you like to make all that fuss over Mariah I wouldn't besides it might tempter to stay if your cooking's still good downloadable too well that's what made Louisa nut buttons other than Marius she said to me time and again with tears in her eyes I'm afraid clearer she says that end they only married me for me cooking oh this is taking rather more growing material that I thought for in the beginning honey the government valued the vitamin content of tomatoes in the English climate their outdoor season is short and unreliable so every available Glass House space was requisitioned with the flowers gone Harry must somehow convert the staging to carry a crop of tomatoes the two walls of the well-rotted manure was placed along like this and in the middle of the manure is placed alone and the lobe is firmed fairly firm otherwise you just get a soft lanky growth to the tomatoes but the real idea of the Tomato walls is to keep the lobe together okay and you will be able to keep the moisture in better than you would if it was just obeyed of low the ministry of food was worried that shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables might lead to vitamin deficiencies particularly among children [Applause] hi natives this is your chin up boy to tell you I made a note on my cuff children under five need protection from illness I quite agree and they also need good help yes and if you need a thing then you have to fish for it don't you know you're so fish fish caught cod cod liver oil cod liver oil it's a fine thing yes and they do say that it builds uh good strong teeth and bones and good bones mean good support as he support them a man supports his bride exactly bride bride that's it they give it away free cod liver oil rich in vitamins A and D was made available to all children under five good for them though it was it was no fun to take can you stop a minute now because I've got your medicine for you I suppose it did make up for a deficiency really but it was getting it down little children's necks that was the problem open why well it tasted so horrible didn't it was like neat fish going down I don't like it with it much more fun was the chance to play in the rubble of a bomb site or to have a go at growing vegetables the shortage of seeds in the shops made a gift from America particularly welcome but some of the vegetables were unfamiliar to the British Gardener like squash and sweet corn While others had Horticultural problems I think some of the lettuce varieties were not suited to all areas in this country let us there's more to it that beats the eye some of the varieties that came over it was not too certain what some of them were and the light in this country being different to the seed saving areas of America which was California and those places where it was after dry it was different and and some of them instead of making good Hearts say they made baysy plants they were different [Music] I keep thinking you know my dear when you're not here there's no one to Romans it's just someone who dance with every letter than me [Music] the war taught people to take care of what they had if anything got broken it was increasingly difficult to replace the China factories of the potteries were producing 67 varieties of cut before the war now they were down to three [Applause] this isn't China that's Earth and where because I suppose it's another cut and semester the government forbid the production of all but a range of plain whiteware called utility cups were even made without handles to double the sugar bowls if you had the sugar at least you've tried to replace it that's something so it still keeps our number up I'm pollinating them on a nice morning like this this requires doing two or three times a week the pollen is dry the the atmosphere of this house is reasonably dry this morning and the pollen is on the stamens but it needs shifting and just a tap like this moves the pollen which falls under the stigma and you get a pretty good set once you've done the pollinating right through then you get hold of a water can or a rose pipe and just damp the floor down shut the ace up for a few minutes it creates a closer atmospheric conditions that's just enough to start the pollen running and it does assure you of a pretty good set it's cost you nothing other than the neighbor belt tightening continued throughout 1942 and another new word crept into the language austerity clothes already rationed were now severely restricted in design even the number of pleats and seams were fixed and Lace was forbidden and look at this dress I got down the town from that some women through second-hand stalls in their search for the glamor of pre-war fashion well I'm pleased with it however wait till we see it I'll not give my final verdict then when the legs and all are done to match Paris saved every bit of wood as she can to Lavish on his Tomatoes it contains the potash necessary for Healthy Growth potassium during the war was extremely difficult to get hold of and very costly but a useful crop of tomatoes must have a goodly supply of potash and the pot ash prevents the Greenback as we called it in tomatoes that's a green ring around the top of the Tomato where the stalkers joined and that of course wouldn't ripen if the plants were lack in potash Scourge is a tomato crop it's been a real pest for Generation after generation of gardeners anyone growing tomatoes is Jolly lucky to get through growing a crop naturally or normally without the white fly finding it it's just beginning in here it's it's a job to find but now's the time to tackle it and in our old potting shed cupboard belonging to the old inside form and I found a sample bottle of Curry's white fly fume must have been in that cupboard for the last 25 to 30 years what's the most surprised it was still sealed they're still good so I thought we would throw some of that this afternoon it's quite a simple matter to put it down I always like to damp the class first in the water and squeeze the water out so that they were damp and then you tip the Curry's wife Loy fume onto that and that absorbed the liquid was throw off the fume and when you've done that you've just stuck it at several places about those and got out of the haze in the morning under those conditions you would find the floor was pretty well carpeted with white Floyd but of course it had to be followed up every three or four days in May the Board of Trade asked women to wear socks for the summer instead of stockings many preferred to give the impression of wearing stockings by painting their legs all manner of recipes were tried suntan lotion gravy Browning and even onion juice the Final Touch needed a friend with an eyebrow pencil and a steady hand I can't manage that from down there I'm afraid you'll have to get on the chair no it's still not hard enough onto the table all right then back a bit yeah bring my other foot back that's it how is this skirt going up tonight then right to the top Oh My Goodness Me You're Expecting all this to be straight get your nose the other way hurry up but no you can't hurry this job because you've got to get your seams straight and I'm an old lady with shaky and I'm going to the Joint in the middle of the knee keep your knee taut I'm trying to hold it to a bit tall because I won't come down now well who needs stockings when I've got you well that's it I should go right down into your shoe in case you take your shoes off to get a more bumps into the dance tonight stop your seams in the right place I don't think that's too bad looks alright to me it'll save our new stockings and we'll put your skirt down [Music] foreign [Music] part of any wartime dance was the raffle for some coveted luxury tonight Joyce has been lucky she's won a banana a fruit unseen by most people since the War Began wartime Ingenuity naturally found a substitute Parson it mashes up and it looks like banana when you've got it mashed up and if you've got a little bit of banana Essence left over from you know where you've used it before two or three drops of that into a parsnip the parsnip already being nice and sweet you can mix it up with a fork and make a imitation banana sandwich but whatever you do don't put in too much Essence as it's very very strong I don't remember using it at the end of the war well you couldn't get any more banana Essence and they forget very quickly children they soon forgot the flavor of the banana when the banana did come back in again a lot of children didn't like it a great day for Bristol and for the young people of Britain as the Good Ship to Lotto comes into dark with a cargo of 8 million bananas and Advance unloading begins at once and this shows you what six years without a banana has done to this young man he's forgotten how to tackle the damn thing [Music] blue skies around the corner walk around the corner with me just around the corner you'll see those blue skies all blue skies [Music] this is the moment we've been waiting for the dry and ready for packing now so pick them carefully keep the string on them whatever you do otherwise that supports the quality that's a bit warm in here I'll put some more air on while you start picking picking tomatoes is like anything to do with tomatoes it's a dirty job and it was never very popular your ads go black there's a a film comes off of the tomatoes which stage you and the foliage stage you even more white fly left excretia all the leaves which be good in with a natural blue off of the leaves made it even worse on your ads were stained something terrible ordinary soap would move it one of the finest things to move it was to get a really ripe tomato and rub it in your hands like a bit of soap and it would all squeeze through your ads it'd look pretty revolted but it was done immediately you'd finished the job it was a very good thing if a garden was registered for food production the bulk of what it grew had to be sent to official wholesalers but there was always something for local callers hello how are you this afternoon a little bird told me that you might have got some Tomatoes well I've got some I'll let you have some but I'm really supposed to send them all to the pool oh there must be some that I'm ready to come with me then we'll see what we can find you I consume squash a few if you want oh yeah oh yeah oh yes because you can't send squashy things to the market all right well we'll see what we can find you all right avoid the step would you 'd be nice if you'll just have a few pound and a half that's what I'm sorry please I think our dust scales go down a bit heavy yeah he's gone babe we've got any oh more nice goodies about well we've got a cucumber here this one's perfectly legal it's been grown without any artificial eat something we're allowed to do controlled at Temperance about Siri like a marrow well it is very early put it in there then I'll keep the bags shut up on the way home right there you are then that's all you're getting today thank you very much all right there's just about Roy yeah it won't be too much you know be just right I think sure so can I come and have a look at you guys just got to say I expect to see you next week all right and no complaints about today no all right I'll make sure yeah bye-bye wartime leaflets urged people to preserve Tomatoes whenever they were plentiful although they lost some of their vitamins they added flavor and a welcome Touch of color to recipes in The Long Winter months one method was to bottle them in Kilner jars when you've got your Jar full roll up a cloth and put it underneath and then give your jar a good bang and you'll be surprised how far your Tomatoes will drop down you'll probably get in another three or four try and do this if you can because it stops so much shrinkage when you cook them foreign if you've got a spare jar of sort of assorted sizes leave those and put them in with a rest because then you can carefully spoon them into the jars when they're cooked and fill your jars up again lives up for me please turn my gas out for a minute cute [Music] then you've got your brine to do that's about two tablespoonfuls of salt to a pint pint and a half of water also put in with this about um dessert Spoonful of Sugar because sugar and tomatoes marry quite well together so make sure that they're really covered up if you can because they tend to discolor they're a little bit riper than I would have actually liked them but I just have to check and see how we get off we use them for soup or can fry with them but I think they'll be a little bit too far gone how long will they last like that well we just have to watch them really more than anything because they're plenty ripe enough like a barrel a bit more underwrite than that really in a way you have to have what you can get and we'll put the lids on and screw them up tight now make sure it's really tight and then give it a half turn back and then as it cools it'll shut itself up again and then we'll try them again in the morning make sure they're all right foreign 1942 the war reached stalemate the Germans lay Siege to the Russians at Stalingrad and the British confronted Rommel in the deserts of North Africa on the home front the last luxury disappeared when sweets came on ration although the sun Shone the country's mood was far from sunny the BBC did its best to ease the loneliness of Separation that so many now felt a letter from home to the forces from Dara Lynn and Fred Hartley dear boys I've been working in the West End all this week and using the tubes and buses a lot I realized how well some of the girls are doing your job while you're away I had a pleasant surprise when one of them a girl on a 23 bus recognized me she must have seen a picture of me somewhere she said she'll be listening in tonight and so will her husband since I started singing about my man in this letter a few dozen sweethearts and wives have proudly sent me snaps of the man in their lives if you're lucky you've got a girl like that a girl who stick by you through all weathers and all your ups and downs she'll stand by you she'll take the kicks she'll be proud to call you my man fish got to swim I got a love one man till I die [Music] yeah tell me you can't expect things to be as good as they were for you in peacetime so try to make the best of things as you find them foreign [Music] 1942 an a Lancaster bomber flies over Chilton Gardens heavy bombing raids against Germany now became more frequent I for what I know I thought well he's getting today what he deserves and if it will shorten the War I think it should be done although at the same time there's no doubt many of us felt that it was wrong [Music] by November there was a growing sense that the tide was beginning to turn in North Africa the eighth Army defeated Rommel at El Alamein [Music] all right [Music] a good morning Tommy Atkins from Jerusalem with you his submarine the Spitfires and Dad is in the 615 or we'll be very soon but if spirit's got a lift the stomach got no such Comfort the battle of the Atlantic continued and to save on wheat Imports the ministry of food produced the national loaf as Ruth Mott recalls it wasn't popular it was so dry always because of course they've left so much more in it than when we have our bread like today we used to rub it through a sieve sometimes and try and get some of the husk out of it but it dried so quickly it was quite nice if you were at it today when it came but the next day it was very dry a greater percentage of wheat germ was left in the bread reducing the amount of flour used a lot of effort went into persuading people that the loaf was good for them chorus girls at the Windmill theater were photographed eating it but to the British brought up on a diet of fine white bread the coarse gray loaf remained unappetizing yet the British passion for a cooked breakfast remained as strong as ever even if the ingredients included the national Loaf and a new arrival reconstituted egg ah here's a date for you no I'm sorry this is the date I meant December 14th now you can get your new lot of dried egg here's the date and here's the tin and there's that other date simulated Research into techniques for dehydrating food put into practice this saved huge amounts of shipping space powdered egg from North America now replaced shellings each person got a tin a month the equivalent of 12 eggs well I think like everything else you've grabbed it with Glee and thought you'd got something that it was very nice really dried egg a lot of people still say they liked dry egg um it helped to make the cakes you can make an omelet with it you could make scrambled egg it didn't eat out your egg ration if you hadn't got any other source of eggs available Joyce would you bring it in for me now please foreign take some getting used to no it doesn't it's quite Pleasant and the bread's quite nice at Chilton Gardens the battle against pests continues with a shortage of pesticides vigilance was the best defense Harry Dodson nips an old enemy in the bud this wretched thing black fly broad Bean black fly and one seldom getaway related appearing especially in a Gardens like this you've got to be very Vigilant and a little bit earlier than this although these were free of it last weekend and as soon as you see it you want to take the tops eight removing these soft tops at about this length is sufficient to to stop it's spreading it's a it's a messy job to do all together but it pays otherwise it gets under the beam and the beans were wouldn't be very pleasing to the Cook and certainly no use to the market in country areas there was always plenty of fresh vegetables but it was often difficult to get fish the fishing industry was hard-pressed the best of its boats had been requisitioned by the Navy and the fish that was caught was sold close to where it was landed as Supply couldn't be guaranteed fish was never rationed first come first served produced long hues we queued for every everything and the one we took no notice of it at all it was something that developed in the war and if you saw a queue you hung on the back of it whether you knew what it was or not and tried to find out as you shuffled along what you were queuing for hello hello oh what a day when the 10 back at four and looks like it too the state of this table not that bad fish became more readily available with the arrival of fresh salted corn from Iceland there are how about it's a nice bit of fish where did you get that from up smelly alley it's quite nice finish is highly perishable but once salted it could be more widely distributed in promoting it the ministry of food emphasized it was fresh not dried but Cooks found it needed a good soaking creative recipes and plenty of garnish how the balloon smells pretty and they're lovely blue they're sure they vary so don't they um I think if you go up there around that corner you'll find some okay let's go and see what they're like up there yeah I think the secret is to pick them fairly young I think they're better than also they're more tender for use um and they're quite like spinach when you cook them so they can be a substitute even a nice little pair of gloves anyhow to pop on so that if they do get any tickly bits that they're not quite so bad stun yourself yet once or twice oh come on you have to get a shift on because we want one for today I'm going as fast as I can what this is this is a substitute for spinach so in that case you'll want a lot or even more than that oh yes you want about twice three types as many as that I'll be here all day I can see that after an overnight soaking to remove the salt the Cod is ready for baking [Music] Joyce hurry up hurry up with well it didn't really come into the Villages at all we used to go into the town for it didn't come into the town every day but most days would be something in one of the fish shops and of course you've got a choice of several of them in in those days it wasn't very delicate fish as a rule it was usually sort of cod or Herring sprats perhaps things like that and salt Cod if there was some available foreign [Music] just like spinach with about a quarter of a pan full of water I think a little bit of salt and pop them in very quickly and don't leave them in too long so that they keep a nice bright green if you just feel them between your first finger and your thumb and they sort of split easy then they're ready to Dish up Nettles were not only eaten they were also important in the treatment of asthma the country's stock of drugs was becoming dangerously low and nettles were on the list of wild plants the government wanted collected foreign most of the things you reckon to eat and finish there and then sort of thing don't try and save any for tonight or tomorrow just eat it and enjoy it you know as much as you could the green sisters had an extraordinary experience last night a man came up and kissed each one of them they slapped his face but they were sorry afterwards because the man was chewing tobacco like fish cigarettes were not rational but they were equally hard to come by people joke that a millionaire was someone who smelled like an onion and Still Smoked their favorite brand of cigarette growing tobacco was something that quite a lot of people were interested in during the war when the price of cigarettes and tobacco was going up with every budget and was running out in the local shops and that sort of thing and I don't know who started this I don't know where the idea came from but it was encouraged by the ministry and if you were growing sufficient quantity you could actually send it away to a center where it would be properly cured and that for you foreign it's easy to raise from seed and it's easy to produce the plants the tobacco plants preferably should have been grown without any check but of course they could not be planted eight until the end of May beginning of June in even the favorable areas in this country if you planted a mate too soon and you've got a frost well you lost them with a frost and it was a plant that you wanted somewhere about two foot six to three feet in Heights with a nice even lot of leaves on both sides and if it got a check this was difficult to achieve thank you meanwhile the nation's hen population was facing its own crisis the growing scarcity of feed I'm sorry madam I'm only allowed to supply with your rational poultry food I know it's small you better see the Ministry of Agriculture right right I appreciate your predicament Mrs White you'll be glad to hear that we found the solution the government have organized a nationwide collection of households scrap to be turned into chicken for you it's ration free and it solves the poultry Keepers problems Yuri of it I know if human beings will do theirs and save every bit of scrap they can I know they will good day and please accept this small token of gratitude on behalf of the Hills [Applause] [Music] you've got those beds done yes give them a good hair in I did right got the dust off The Dressing Table yeah right when I eat them gone do this around these chickens let's cover it with a little drop of water out of the kettle and then put it on the flame and boil it for about 10 minutes and we'll get the mash in yeah let the chickens have it nice and hot and then they might lay two more eggs oh hello Joyce I bought your chicken swills oh that's wonderful thanks [Music] yes it's got um it's the cabbage in it bread crumbs and bacon rinds and all the scrap let's go have a look at the chickens then are they laying all right yep they're doing really well oh yes how often do they lay then um it's usually one each a day oh so how many are there let's see one two three four five six oh that's very good six you can spare a couple then for you Joyce yes here you go then thanks right now you must come with me because I've got something else to show you really what do you think of these then you need a few more though won't you oh I'll get some more look a bucket of mushrooms from the Anderson shelter may not have been a feast but it was a small luxury for the family and a Triumph for the gardener [Applause] oh I know what I wanted to ask you yes it's a good thing to see that film yet the great day no it's not about it's the battle line girl and she gets involved with this Rich Young farmer he's very keen and he marches are off to the Past keep my fingers crossed there how are we doing we ought to get over the Tunica before dinner if we're lucky okay you better take a rest run along home get some sleep no I'm right oh you're up most of the night with the carving that's nothing what's chilling I'd like to hear one of the men call it that you know you've done something wrong Margaret tomorrow is this rejuvenated it and me made everything seem new and exciting just like my first spring here keep it like that wouldn't you I hope so [Music] thank you by 1943 land girls had earned the grudging admiration of their employers some had even decided that they couldn't face returning to the city when the war was over despite the heavy work that went with life on the land Garden routine could be lonely and monotonous but when there was a chance to work together singing popular songs helped pass the time [Music] [Music] one two two [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right now there are over ten thousand women working in private Gardens the war was making them question their traditional roles one contributor to the land Girl magazine declared it her ambition to buy a farm when it was all over that day got a little nearer in the summer of 1943 when the Allies landed on the beaches of Italy T you used to wait was there that you whispered that you loved me you'd always be my Lily of the land light my own Lily Marley Mrs Roosevelt continuing her investigation of Britain at War and especially the work of women visited baram in Kent here she saw fine examples of local produce and among other introductions she met a pig which rejoiced in the name of Franklin and a hair called Elena as the Allies battled in Italy the wife of the American president watched another Army prepare itself for Action the members of the women's Institute gathered to preserve the Autumn Fruit Harvest the ministry of food was concerned that the amount of fruit rotting in Orchards it set up fruit preservation centers run by the wi each year in Village halls and Farmhouse kitchens members made jam and bottled fruit America sent over 500 portable canning machines now it was a case of eat what you can can what you can't fruit was packed into tin cans and boiling water or syrup poured over the contents then the lid was put in place and the can slotted into the machine rollers joined the lid to the can in a continuous scene a precise 20 turns of the handle were necessary to complete the operation I thought it was a wonderful Implement I think it could be used today quite a lot if you wanted it to it was easy I thought when once you just sort of learned to count to 20 you were all right foreign ization was the main thing when you'd got your canning done and you've got your Lids on they all went into the boiling water for so long so that they'd heated right through if you hadn't done this properly of course after a little while the lids would blow labeling was very important whether it was fruiting tins or vegetables because if so happened that you put your labels on and you hadn't really got enough adhesive to them they fell off and then you didn't know what you'd really got so used to pick up the tin and shake it and think oh yes that's plums I don't need to find when you opened it you'd got carrots it was hot tedious work and if there were grumbles about the sugar given to the preservation centers the results fully Justified the allocation [Music] somewhere over there or confined to Barracks was more than I could bear I knew you were waiting in the streets I heard your feet could not meet my own [Music] resting in the village just behind the line we've hearted your lips are close to mine to my weight by September the leaves on the tobacco plant are ready for picking Harry hangs them up to cure in the dry atmosphere of the potting shed they must rise slowly and naturally and not put them in a glass house or somewhere where they're going to dry quickly the usual thing to do after that was to take them to a tobacconist who would shred them up for you for rolling up to make cigarettes or if you wanted it for a pipe he would cut it coarser for the pipe as Autumn gets into its stride Annie starts on the job that land girls hated most in the garden Perkins Spritz is not one of the jobs that I would volunteer to do if I could help it but the leaves are stripped off and then you should start at the bottom of the stand and with a couple of fingers below the Sprout of the thumb on the top you bend them down or bend them sideways then they should snap off but that's that's the theory it doesn't always work like that sometimes you'll find a stem where the Sprite is very tough on there and if you've got many like it it is a laborious job and it makes the tips of the fingers quite tender well if it's a cold and frosty morning it's not pleasant at all 1943 ended with the Allies making slow but steady progress in Italy and there was much talk of a second front being launched in the new year did you manage to get all that order of sprite yes I did Mr oh thanks oh thank you very much well good night then good night see you in the morning [Music] in 1944 the government received an encouraging report from its advisors this showed that since the outbreak of War consumption of milk and vegetables had risen by 30 in contrast the intake of meat and sugar had dropped by the same amount the government's food policy had been designed to cope with the blockade of imports but ironically its long-term effect was to improve the nation's diet BBC homes are up in the morning early this time a physical exercises for ladies [Music] good morning everyone stand on your feet a little way apart bring boat on straight forwards to shoulder level the shoulder width apart now listen drop down to your side the latest ideas on health and nutrition influenced official policies but luck played its part by Good Fortune what was bad for people was difficult to get what was good for them was implantable Supply no swing forwards and sideways and circle them up forwards and sideways and up swing forward and sideways and ups and round more than one [Music] and sideways will smart prepares a breakfast cereal that is more commonly known today by its Swiss name muesli to rolled oats that have been soaked overnight Ruth adds grated Raw carrot chopped apple and dried fruit s [Music] [Music] ring across okay we're about to try this Swiss breakfast this morning I'm not supposed to think of it but wait a minute [Music] I've given you more than I had you're a growing girl I've finished growing I think no well I'm younger than you specifically cheeky there were several indicators that the nation's Health had improved among them was the significant fall in infant mortality under the national milk scheme or expectant mothers and young children were entitled to a pint of milk a day at reduced cost free if their income was below a certain level but I don't need that well you will when you got through that pile of washing what's that oh I found yourself as I've been around the kitchen no nothing's like spinach it's never finished it's two in this house [Music] throughout May 1944 an increase in military activity alerted villages in Southern England but something was imminent it gave you a very funny feeling really because you wondered what was really going to come out of it all you had no idea and all around here we were planes and gliders going over so that you knew there was something was happening even before it was announced new truths were in the area and yet you couldn't see them it was an unearie sort of a silence that was sort of a giveaway and we knew that something different had suddenly come over the area and we expected you know any day to hear that that they were gone [Music] um this is the BBC Home Service here is a special bulletin read by John snake D-Day has come early this morning the Allies began the assault on the Northwestern face of Hitler's European forces the first official news came just after half past nine when Supreme headquarters of the Allied experience before we've landed in France communicate number one this said under the command of General Eisenhower Allied Naval forces supported by strong Air Forces began Landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France into the month a little later the General Montgomery is in command of the army group carrying out the assault this Army group includes British Canadian and United States forces [Music] we were pleased that when it did come that have always got away and got such a good foothold so early on and we used to talk about it in the potting shed every morning before we started and one in another would bring different Snippets of news and that sort of thing we hoped the end was coming a because you wanted to see everyone back and the other thing was you were so sick of rations that you wanted do you thought if the war ended that that would be the end of rationing but it didn't happen quite like that [Music] mounting the largest Seabourn invasion in history consumed all the raw materials the country could produce at Chilton Gardens Harry Dodson Burns wood off the estate it supplements the meager coal allocation for the glass houses all right let them come down wood for burning in The Stoke holes in these estate Gardens was very important disabled one to keep a much better temperature than once our location of Coke or whatever you were burning the method was to go to the fire a couple or three times in the evening according to the outside temperature and then when you went the last time you threw on a few shovelfuls of a Coke but usually by the warning the wood was all gone but there was a red glow in the boiler from the Coke but it was quite satisfactory it was very good a byproduct of burnt wood is potash essential for plant growth but was in very short supply it was only given to crops like tomatoes that needed it most before the war most Potter should come from northern Europe with that Source cut off every effort was made to encourage gardeners to produce their own the government even issued a blueprint for building the right kind of bonfire it's quite interesting this early as pretty complicated but uh it's worth a while ago I think we'll we'll see what we could do with it anyway we've got the material here but first of all we've got to put this uh old drain pipe in they don't question me because the the leaflet doesn't say that it has to be anything like this but the leaflet also doesn't say hey we're going to make a tunnel to let this draft through so unboxing clever and I'm going to put this drain pipe on the bottom go up to the point that we're going to make the size of our bonfire to be so we've got to practice around and get a nice Circle and reasonably firm so that it will hold the follow-on material which is in that heat there there's not very very deer only I want to see it rained on a flat side we want the dry material yeah and watch it but maybe of boiled material oh yeah we want the rice recruiters if you've got to ignite the bigger Woods so that it keeps the conical shape this is what we want more you were sorry so we've got a good six inches or more of this material already and then we can put all that damp rubbish on all the obnoxious weeds that you found on the back of the Border bits of thistle this is absolutely ideal as those old metals they could go on having done this we've had the easy bit now we've got to start work a good water around the bottom right that you've got a good base then but put the other soil on the Earth covering kept the fire smoldering and prevented any glow escaping at night that would have contravened the blackout if you pass me the Lucifers I set light to it and we'll see what happens the bonfire looked impressive but it's doubtful whether it produced any more potash than the conventional one well that caught more giraffe is what I expected it to you it's all the smoke coming up yeah I thought it would it deeded a little more clingy soil than what we've got today this soil is dried out in a few days the instructions were elaborate but not as clear as they might have been the bonfire was probably designed as much to kill weeds as to produce potash and as Harry confessed the result was not quite what he expected I think our Fortnight in too much really burnable material it just caught a light and I totally underestimated the Aveda draft that we were going to get if we can close the area of the Janet Terrace I don't so they think that the spectacular part of the business was supposed to have really come into it and I think what we burned in half a day I think should have lasted at least a day of the night uh but you've got two pretty good elements there together you've got some sterilized soil and you've got the package underneath it all the beetroots like potash and use a good deal of it too if you can get any let the beetroot Crown have a good share of it including all the wooden bonfire ashes you can get and make sure that all the ways to be truth leaves not required for food are returned to the soil either direct or by way of the composting then they'll return the potash which they took from the soil Mr Middleton was one of the most popular wartime broadcasters his reassuring voice made him a valuable Ally of the Ministry of Agriculture it would be helpful officials wrote if he could get across the staff we should be putting out for the guidance of gardeners he did but in a way that never sounded like propaganda I'm being accused of neglecting my vegetable alphabet which I starved in so preferably better return to death for a few minutes now I think beat comes next on the list and I consider the beat one of the most important wartime vegetables because it rains high in food values but I say they don't make the most of this excellent vegetable perhaps its color is against it except for salads but why we should take it for granted that beetroot can only be eaten in salads obsessed in vinegar coal is a mystery to me there must be plenty of other and more attractive ways of cooking and using it I like it as a hot dish mashed and flavored a bit with onions and other seasonings and if you want to get the real rich flavor of beetroot wrap them separately in buttered papers and bake them in a very slower until they're quite soft basically they don't believe that way and you get all the goodness in them foreign while remembering potatoes don't forget our old friend the carrots will you his price is down to tuppence a pound and he's wonderful for night blindness though not this kind of course the carrot contains vitamin A needed to keep eyes healthy and eaten raw it was sold as a substitute for sweets it also joined the beetroot as an ingredient of salads never a strong point of the British Cuisine salads were now recommended all the year round chopped raw cabbage and celery gave vim and vigor and helped build resistance to infection the government appealed to vanity you can look right if you feel right if you feed right ounce of lettuce is worth an inch of lipstick s oh that's Lovely isn't it I tell you what what take the outside leaves off and put them in the bowl for two the latest is fresh but real mayonnaise to accompany it remains a dream put them in the salad dryer this is a a substitute mayonnaise from the one that you make with egg yolks it's done with a steamed boiled potato a medium-sized one not about two to three ounces and steam it and skin it and push it through a fine white sieve oh add a little bit of mustard salt pepper and mix that in then mix in a tablespoon from a tablespoon from a half of vinegar and then gradually add an oil to make it to the consistency that you want about two tablespoons of oil to start off with and then just mix that in carefully if you try and get it in too fast or beat it too much then the oil comes back out again so it's basically more of a stirring action than a beating action and then you just have that with your salad some the pipe is about four large carrots if you want to take the end and lay the table I'll finish this off here foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] try the mayonnaise yeah no that's about eggs [Music] you up BBC Home Services Paris has been liberated the community just received from general attorney announces that it has been liberated by French forces of the interior [Music] as the Allies battled their way across northern France at home a new and unexpected danger threatened [Music] the v1s were pilotless flying bombs aimed at London they often fell short or were shot down in a hail of shrapnel well the most distinctive thing about them of course was the noise they made and the fire that was coming out of the rear side of them stood there watching them and hopefully they were going to carry on and suddenly the fire went out and always stopped and it took of those guys [Music] [Laughter] foreign [Music] Doodlebugs as they were nicknamed left a trail of Destruction over Southern England thousands of glass houses were damaged rendering their contents unfit to eat entire crops of tomatoes had to be thrown away the fruit any good has it no we're going to have to bypass this piece we love to put a marker boy here this soil mustn't be used next year because of all these fragments and the same was the crop we're left to Mark those off and none of this crop must go to the market I can see small splinters of glass and if that went to the Tomato pool we would be in trouble laughs then in the Autumn of 1944 came bad news from the continent the Airborne Landings in Holland failed to dislodge the Germans once again people had hoped the war would be over by Christmas it's not on the radio Burton Daisy's recipe was still make do and pretend I'm making a staffing we never told us we were going to have turkey I've heard of a way of cooking a joint that you've mistaken for turkey sounds a bit far-fetched to me now but there you are I'm certainly looking to know what it is all this I think Christmas was the time that you missed families and and that sort of thing I mean there was always somebody of the family away somewhere or other and you couldn't always get to each other so you just had to uh make the most of it and do what you could you better get a long pencil it's a long recipe yes baby well first of all you want a leg of nothing and I said about it [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] collecting your stuff for Christmas fact sort of September time you know collecting a little bit of fruit with your odd coupons and putting it down and then I'm going to weigh out 12 ounces of self-raising flour [Music] we do not know what awake does when we open the door of 1945 but if we look back [Music] to those earlier Christmas days of the war and we can surely say that the darkness daily goes less and less the lamps which the Germans put out all over Europe first in 1914 and then in 1939 are being slowly rekindled [Music] that looks very nice it'll last us a bit of a feel of it when we look back now two years gone by to a Darkness foreign [Music] decisions were agreed on Final Victory the occupation and control of Germany and a world Organization for keeping the peace at half past nine last night Britain America and Russia broadcast a statement by The Big Three conference on its worship [Music] hahaha all the girls are crazy about us [Music] the songs were still cheerful about as 1945 dawned everyone was heartily weary of the war after five years the only wish was for it to end I think you've got very despondent sometimes you know when you read the paper and you found out that there'd been a push somewhere that hadn't come off or we've been pushed back from where we've got to you did get very despondent then and then perhaps something else turned up you'd heard that we'd done something and you sort of felt a bit better about it but I don't think anybody really thought it was going to last as long as it did oh at home conditions far from improving got worse the government concentrated its resources on the huge Allied Army pushing its way towards Germany the country's liberated in the advance were in a state of collapse Britain now had to help feed Europe as well as itself rationing would continue long after the war ended at Chilton Gardens Harry Dodson and land girl Annie let nothing go to waste this is the old flare of spring it's been around ever since I can remember the government renewed its efforts to get people to save fuel even to the extent of showing them how to cook a cabbage your wash and said call to be with a sharp knife oh after how can I watch it with a sharp knife don't be sorry that was a silly job you don't wash it with a sharp knife you wash it and then shred it coarsely with a sharp knife oh okay you do that yeah yeah that's right now it says you cook for 10 to 15 minutes in a couple of water oh Arthur I can't get in a cup full of water not you you don't get into a couple of water put the cabbage in a couple of water King cabbage in a cup of water no no you put the cabbage in the cup of water in the saucepan well I'll have them now then please think this is where the idea of our modern day uh have it a little bit crunchy and they certainly have more flavor um we did used to tend to boil things rather too long the tank is a good scrub I hope yes I did good yeah um on his little handle that's what it's there one suggested way of saving fuel was to cook everything together Ruth Mark uses a steamer to prepare a complete meal the meat pudding goes in first as this takes the longest to cook meanwhile the vegetables are put into muslin bags to go in the pot when the time is right Joyce come and turn that pan down we should have any gas left at the end of the day look at look at straight to the saucepan too second to go in are the potatoes secured to the lid of the steamer any saving was important as the winter was marked by the worst fuel shortage of the war coal production had gone down despite a massive recruitment drive for the mines including conscription of 17 year olds and what coal there was was badly distributed a great trick in using a steamer is to judge the different cooking times each item needs only then will everything be ready together must be nearly done now sir we'll put this other vegetables in you can give me a hand at the stove remember you hang on to that Kate then you've got a hold of that tight yes it'll be heavy all right but it's heavy isn't it yeah the gravy and the two veg join the meat pudding and the potatoes for the final period of cooking so this is our trial run today and see how it works it's a good idea isn't it it's quite a good idea I don't see why it shouldn't work it's just the question of getting it all worked out in your mind as to how long it's going to take to cook save me on the washing up as well yeah but you've got a nice black sauce so that'll take you instead of three you see that'll take you just as long to clean [Music] oh yeah that's about it right that's about the right moisture in there that's foreign too dry the steam won't go through it but if it's too wet it clogs and blocks are sticking up and then across the steam blows off through the boat easy it wasn't just people who were Weary by 1945 garden soil had been under Relentless pressure to grow more and more and often became heavily infected with pests and weeds one way of revitalizing it before using it for sowing seeds was to sterilize it with steam well that's it it's about its level now and it'll take roughly about an hour for the steam to come right through on Noah cane stick your fingers into CA warm is getting because that's highly dangerous when you see the seeds really coming through around the edges of the middle it pays you to put your shovel in and just turn the top over as if you were sort of digging the top put the top back on again for about another 10 minutes or so and by then it should be cooked and by that time it will have killed off all the harmful bacteria and it will kill off all the weed seed which is very important foreign brought good news at the end of March the Allied armies crossed the Rhine German resistance started to crumble Ruth planned a treat pick your elderflowers on a nice dry day you find them everywhere because the birds carry them and dropped them and then they grow in the crevices of your Garden Path and behind the stones so you're constantly pulling them out give them a wash just quickly under the tap and then dab them dry and then just pick off the little flowers or nip them off with the scissors and pop them into your batter they've got quite a strong taste that the main thing to do I think is not to put too many in I think they're better under flavored than overflavored because they are very strong as you know if you go down the road and you can smell Elder flowers long before you get to them the batter Ruth has made is a mixture of flour and dried household milk and it's a special occasion she's allowed herself the luxury of using a fresh egg Delicacies like this were rare in Wartime Britain after the war as the food situation got worse Patsy appeared to help young mothers cope one of her missions was to break down the suspicion that greeted new arrivals of the butchers while meat it was claimed tasted like beef but few believed it when it arrived in January it was immediately popular with restaurant owners as it was off the ration it also made a change from awful and the meat that appeared so often at the top of menus rabbit many households kept rabbits for meat no one relished the task of killing one let alone skinning it was not Mr rabbit for you oh that's good oh it's a nice little Harvest rabbit come around here and I'll show you how to skin it because I don't expect your skin to rub it before no you take hold of the leg and push rabbit was very popular because a it was off the ration and B it was very cheap I mean it was that they were only about a shilling each so that if you could find someone to bring you one at that price you've got a cheap meal of four people at least and pull the rest of this skin down and eventually this foot will fly out a bit of luck that's quite a skill to it isn't there but it's quite hard to get used to doing them there you are it's through now so that when you do that and that that takes it around the back a bit and turn it round and you hope that the other one will do the same you want to be quite strong in the wrist for this game this one you see will be easier because you've got the other one already out we're down now to the skin we put through and then this one should come out like the other one there layer to there now you land with his tail down here so you then chop through his tail just there and you then want to go now you should come up the back to the shoulders oh yeah we keep the skin because the to be a Rag and Bone man or somebody ran for that you like get temps for the skin if you're lucky to the shoulder joint under his shoulders have got to come down through the same as the um leg part did so rabbit turned up in all sorts of disguises they went into pies they went into puddings they were steamed they were roast they were into casseroles then you made them with some bacon and put a sauce over them I think on odd occasions they turned up as chicken when it was all scraped off the bone very versatile little chat was the rabbit that there for a minute and we'll do the other one and follow sort of that line round and you'll be all right I've got a fair bit of milk on his leg oh yes the legs lovely part matter of fact it's the best part of the rabbit I think or the middle of the back's very nice and would take the two shoulders that's it sit and then we'll put that into some nice salt water so we'll clear up now you take that other stuff out and I'll put this into the bowl keep the skin separately because we want to keep that for the ravenber man I'm going to put this into some salt water and then rabbit skins joined a long list of materials for Salvage they were turned into winter hats and gloves and the fur was even used to make powder parts roof plans a rabbit stew on a bed of harico beans as an alternative to meat the government recommended pulses as a source of bodybuilding protein Harry plant's harico beans at Chilton they're a difficult crop to grow in Britain as they require long periods of sunshine for the pods to mature once they go a golden yellow the whole plant is harvested and hung up to dry in an Airy Greenhouse the beans Harden the pods are shelled and the pulse is packaged for Market nowadays Harry coves are more likely to come from a tin as baked beans in tomato sauce [Music] [Music] dried beans from the Grocers having soaked and boiled them she has enough for two meals nearly six years of war taught people many things but one lesson few forgot was never throw anything away well I think you really in waste nothing I mean where you'd probably thrown through nothing out you found another use for it of some sort but I worry today when I go around supermarkets and see people throwing things in Trolley so you think gosh you know if you'd have lived in the war whatever would you have done [Music] who's there there's no hurricanes that we've got any potatoes then they're going to fill us up are they oh yes all right With Victory close many of the wartime regulations now began to seem Petty frustration showed itself in an increasing Readiness to deal with the black market yesterday what do you got for me today then well quite a load really it's all this not under the wall okay there's no date black market did Cover into it from time to time human nature being what it is it's always time to come in and I don't think if you had a crop that it was only a very poor crop and you do this is so and so could I do pretty well what you've got and she was going to pay a bit over the odds yes donate it was slip through nice to see you all right then I don't want to keep this Lorry anger the video all day we've got something that you've got a surface of and somebody else wanted it you swapped it I mean you you learned to bargain in the war I think you know probably you um let somebody have a bit of March or a few clothing coupons or something like that um I think there was a lot a lot went shuttling about underneath during the wartime it's a sort of a specie of Black Market anything that shuffles along undercover is a sort of a black market thing I mean things used to fall off the bacolores that's where that expression came from we'll see you next week good great nice to see you guys now we're breaking into our programs for the second time tonight this time with some Splendid news from Moscow Berlin Has Fallen Marshall Sterling has just announced the complete capture of the capital of Germany the center of German imperialism and the Cradle of German aggression in view of this fact tomorrow Tuesday will be treated as victory in Europe there and will be regarded as a holiday as a tailpiece to Victory Day we give you Britain's weather on the day that it happened that's something you haven't heard about since the War Began Victory Day started with violent rainstorms in many districts but most of the time it's been sunny and very warm no one could forget that the war against Japan continued but those who had borne the hardships of the home front joined together for a moment to celebrate victory in Europe God's depression turned up again between Ireland and the adults where it supported every moment to be almost taken we're going to have some celebrations tonight so we're going to make some sandwiches but being as reviews are fresh egg for cake which seemed much more sensible thing to do we're going to make up this dried egg according to the ministry of food leaflet for this Curry and egg filling so we're going to try that and see how it works it doesn't work too well it won't be ours if you Misses somebody else is down the road we shall own it our Shop's been quite as much curry as they say because the children will be going to have it as well and they don't like too much curry and then we're going to put it into the frying pan with the margarine and the spring onions which I'm going to use because they are a martyr flavor says onion but you can adapt it to suit yourself that's a welcome saying Danny it's lovely it's a long time since we heard those bells it's lovely isn't it I'm really looking forward to it I think I might put my hair up what Jane there's another light for the pipe cleaners is it yeah the last time of the dance oh that should make a change people won't recognize you will they that's what I'm hoping I know if you've had a good time by the time you get in you're nosy more than likely I'm not alone that's a certain sure thing yes it's nearly three o'clock so the Winner's gonna speak again so could you just turn that up a bit because we don't want to miss anything foreign [Music] [Music] the representative of the German high demand Admiral servants the designated third of the German state of unconditional surrender of all German land trees and airports interested [Music] sign on victory [Music] patiently we're waiting down [Music] rainbows who believe are the ones back home again for the competition tonight I think that looks quite nice it's lovely and clear so we'll see I brought you a rosette to wear they're pretty they are aren't they I think that's better be a lot more there tonight as well as ours taking the pinafore because I should have worn it before the night's out I always do end up in the kitchen although I intend not to lights [Music] foreign [Music] come rain or shine it's turned out fine Lord of memories [Music] eyes [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Sean James Cameron

Views: 4,948

Keywords: sean james cameron

Id: sWh3XdEy87I

Length: 217min 22sec (13042 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023