Episode 8 Wartime Farm

The Great British Countryside...

Setting for one of the most pivotal battles of the Second World War.

Churchill called it "The frontline of freedom",

and it was fought by the farmers of Britain.

Timber!

When war broke out, the Nazis attacked British shipping,

attempting to cut off food imports.

The Government turned to farmers to double home-grown food production.

If they failed, Britain could have been starved into surrender.

Now, historian Ruth Goodman...

..and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn

are working Manor Farm in Hampshire as it would have been

in the Second World War.

Oh!

CHEERING

It's summer and the team must bring in the wheat harvest -

the climax of their farming year.

But they face the conditions of 1945,

when, despite Allied victories, the Nazis were hitting back,

creating growing uncertainty about when the war would end.

Food production came under greater pressure than ever before.

We've got to put some heart back into the land

and this is the machine that's going to enable us to do it.

After six years of conflict, Britain's fields were exhausted

and output was falling.

So the team must restore fertility to their land

and ensure that every last scrap of wheat is brought home.

It is the battle for food and this is the final push to get this in.

As a new food crisis looms...

..on the Wartime Farm.

The team are hoping that in a few weeks, all their work on the farm

will pay off when they bring in the wheat harvest.

-HE SIGHS

-Joys of summer, Peter.

-It's good to see the sun on the wheat.

-Yeah.

For the first time this year, basically.

It's been the wettest summer for a century

and their flax crop has already failed.

Everything now depends on the success of the wheat.

-Still pretty green, is it?

-Still pretty green.

-See that's really wet.

-Yeah.

That's a long way off.

Well, then, we've got what, another few weeks on this?

I would have said so.

So what are we going to harvest this with?

Well, I think we should go for one of the new fangled

machines of the day - the combined harvester.

Something that not only cuts it, it threshes it in the field.

It will combine cutting and threshing.

Using a combined harvester will be crucial to getting every last

scrap of wheat from the field.

A job that in 1945 was more important than ever.

All through the war, wheat yields had been rising,

but now they started to fall.

After five years of record crops, the fertility of Britain's fields

was in decline.

To compensate, imports would have to increase.

But there was a new threat to shipping.

Early in the war, U-boats like this destroyed shipping.

But in 1945, the Nazis launched a high-speed version,

posing a major new threat to imports.

Braced for a crisis,

the Government ordered farmers to restore fertility to their fields.

-There she is.

-All right.

Well, well.

Hi, Ruth.

-RUTH CHUCKLES

-The team are using a muck spreader.

We've got to put some heart back in the land

and this machine will enable us to do it.

Right, we'll load you up and then we'll send you off.

Marvellous.

Muck, or animal dung, is a crucial source of nutrition for the soil.

It improves soil structure

and adds organic substances to help plants grow.

HE COUGHS

It's the winds, you're downwind, what can I do?

Mitigate against it!

HE CHUCKLES

Vicious, isn't it?

It's giving a good even dressing, isn't it?

It is, it's really chopping it up.

Although it was desperately needed, the amount of manure

available to farmers declined sharply during the war.

Early on in the conflict, the Government had brought in a policy

of slaughtering livestock that could not be fed.

Millions were culled

and the knock-on effects were now being felt.

Towards the end of the war, many farmers were beginning to ask

whether it had been wise to lose so many animals from British farming.

We'd seen so many sheep and so many beef cattle lost in agriculture

and as a consequence, we'd lost their manure, we'd lost their dung

and that for years, for centuries,

had been used to put heart back into the land.

With the land exhausted and crop yields in danger,

the Government knew that record food production

couldn't be sustained through another year of war.

Then, in the spring of 1945, the Russians broke through into Berlin

and it seemed likely the Nazi regime would soon fall.

On the 7th of May

came the news Britain had been fighting for for so long.

Germany surrendered.

BIG BEN BONGS

'This is the BBC Home Service.

'We are interrupting programmes to make the following announcement -

'It is understood, that in accordance with arrangements

'between the three great powers, tomorrow, Tuesday,

'will be treated as Victory in Europe Day

'and will be regarded as a holiday.'

Well, beginning of the end.

Hmm.

Hard to think, really, of the relief people must have felt.

I mean, to be told officially that victory was about to happen.

The V-word.

That sort of cessation of danger.

-Yeah, the killing has stopped.

-The killing has stopped.

In Europe.

Only in Europe, yeah.

It must have been strange for them.

Living in this world where you go outside at night

and there's not a single pinprick coming from any house.

There's never been any fireworks,

there's been relatively few parties, then all of a sudden...

-The next couple of days, it must have just erupted.

-Yeah.

-As you say, the sheer relief.

-Yeah.

Maybe we should have some sort of celebration, but perhaps try

and bring in people who do have some memory of Victory in Europe.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

-And really see how they remember it, see what they think.

-Yeah.

-That'd be nice.

-That's a very nice idea.

-You might need to scrub up though.

-I know, I know.

And I need a new collar.

Here's to Victory in Europe.

BOTH: To victory in Europe.

Though Britain was still at war with Japan,

the end of the conflict with Germany

meant the end of the threat of bombing at home.

Blackout precautions could come down.

I imagine one of the first things you must have done

is just take this tape off.

Let the sunlight back into your house.

But in other areas of life, restrictions were still in place.

In May 1945, there was no immediate change to rationing,

so anyone preparing to throw a party had to be ingenious.

I've got a copy of the Home And Country magazine -

which is the WI magazine.

And there's some really interesting recipes in here,

particularly a series of pastries...

that use next to no fat.

Got a wonderful one here for baked potato pudding

which sounds really economical.

Fat was heavily rationed,

so this pastry uses just one third of the amount normally required.

Just that much fat for all that flour.

Wow.

And then, instead of water, I'm to put in golden syrup.

NEVER made pastry like this before.

The wheat crop is still a few weeks away from being ready to harvest,

so Alex is working on restoring fertility to another of his fields.

This time using the cows themselves.

There was a product that wartime farmers could call on

to make this simple.

Well, this is the field, Philip.

Looks nice pasture land in there.

Philip Thornton-Evison is an expert in historic technology

and has come to help Alex set up his very first electric fence.

Electric fences were first officially recommended

by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1939.

In the battle to restore fertility they were an important weapon,

allowing farmers to divide their fields into strips.

-I do like nice straight lines on a farm.

-Yes.

This meant cows could be placed in one section at a time,

ensuring an even spread of manure across the whole field.

I mean, you know...

if I wanted to do this prior to this technology...

would I lay a hedge?

Takes six years to grow.

-Dry stone walling in a county which doesn't have any stone available.

-Exactly.

Build a fence? I need a lot of timber.

-And manpower as well.

-Of course, manpower.

Of course, manpower was something that after the war was lacking.

It was indeed.

So... It really is...

This is opening my eyes.

That'll do you.

A world without it is probably hard to imagine for farmers today.

With the stakes in the ground, it's time to string up the wire.

Keeping that tension on there all the time.

Before connecting it to the fencer unit, which will provide the power.

That's all that needs to be done. That'll hang there quite happily.

What does it say?

"Warning, battery operated only."

-Six volts.

-Six volts, OK.

The electric fence was invented in the 19th century...

..but portable battery-powered units were relatively new.

Earlier designs had been powered by unwieldy sources like steam engines.

The new technology was accessible to all.

And we've got a ticking sound.

That's right, the ticking sound is the unit operating.

-Tick, tick, it's sending pulses of high voltage along the fence.

-Right.

When you or the animal touches the wire,

you make the circuit between here and ground so you get the shock.

I'm with you.

How do I know that's working?

Well, the countryside way of doing it is with a blade of grass.

-So all you need is a nice blade of grass.

-Yep.

So just rest the grass on the wire so you are now completing the circuit.

Is that going to...?

Ooh, yeah!

-That's nasty!

-It is.

-That's a nasty little nip, that is.

I don't think it would take many shocks for a cow to...

No, it wouldn't, it wouldn't.

That's great, that really is fantastic.

-We'll be able to muck evenly the field.

-Exactly.

And that's what wartime Britain desperately needed -

it needed that fertility back in the soil.

Preparations for the VE Day party are underway

and Ruth's putting the finishing touches to her baked potato pie.

The odd thing about this recipe is that it calls

for orange juice and orange zest.

I don't know where I'd get an orange, living in the countryside

during the war. However, I've had a bit of a scout around

and I've come up with a recipe for mock orange juice,

which I think will do the trick.

It's swede really that you peel and slice

and then sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of sugar over

and leave it overnight.

The juice of the swede comes out.

And that is supposed to taste slightly orangey.

Smells like swede.

But there is a certain orangeyness about it.

It's quite amazing, actually.

I'm just going to put a splash in, I think.

Right, I'm to spread jam.

And then my mixture on top.

Hopefully people will like it.

With the fence up, it's time to bring in the cows.

-It's not easy.

-Come on. Up, up, up.

There's better grass in the field.

There they go.

-Oh, look, straight to the fence.

-Did she get a shock?

-I don't know. Steering clear of the fence though, aren't they?

-They are.

-Remarkable, thanks a lot.

-Yeah, thanks a lot, Philip.

The VE Day celebrations have begun.

That's the one!

25!

CONVERSATION INAUDIBLE

What is that?

Baked potato pie.

-Are you sure?

-I am.

Do you two want a bit?

-CHILD:

-Yeah, went in your face.

I can't work out if that's good or not.

SHE LAUGHS

OK, everyone.

Come and gather round.

Up and down the country people joined together

to pay tribute to Britain's war leader - Winston Churchill.

BIG BEN CHIMES

RADIO: 'And now, oh, what wonderful luck!

'At this moment...

'At this moment...

'How wonderful, Mr Churchill has come out onto the Ministry of Health balcony.

'He stands now in the floodlight and he's giving the victory sign

'for all his might from the floodlit balcony.'

-CHURCHILL:

-'This is your victory.

'A victory...

of the cause of freedom.'

Well, I think Winston Churchill deserves a rabble-rousing chorus

of For He's A Jolly Good Fellow.

-Yeah.

-So - one, two, three.

-ALL SING:

-# For he's a jolly good fellow

# For he's a jolly good fellow

# For he's a jolly good fellow

# And so say all of us. #

Hooray!

The team have invited along guests with firsthand memories of VE day -

Mary Davey, Anne Stamper and John Curtis.

What was it like in the countryside, VE day?

Because I've only ever seen it

from the perspective of Trafalgar Square, London.

Oh, it was quite good fun in the country.

All the little villages and towns had their celebrations in the streets

and things and dancing went on for ages at night.

And everybody was chuffed to bits.

There was a big party. It was on the recreation ground.

With a firework party...

-and there was a set piece with fireworks going off.

-Oh, right, OK.

So yeah, that was really....

First time I'd ever seen anything like that.

And the thing I really remember about it

-was that one of these set pieces was an elephant.

-Right.

And when it went off, the trunk moved and I think the tail moved

and I can remember everybody laughing and clapping.

I'd never seen anything like it and I just thought that was wonderful -

very clear memory still.

Many people on VE day were looking forward to loved ones coming home.

But for those with relatives fighting in the Far East,

the end was not yet in sight.

Mary Davey's father had been sent to Malaya.

On VE day, her mother had no idea where he was.

She actually put an advert in a local paper talking about my dad.

And she said, "If anyone lately returned from Malaya

"can give any information, I will be most grateful."

With a photograph of my dad.

-A heartfelt plea, isn't it?

-Yes.

And from that came a letter from a Captain Pearce

and the bit that's really...

He says "I was, for a time, at the camp in Thailand."

He died on the 21st September 1943.

-This was 1946 by the time my mum had this information.

-Gosh.

-So, she was a long time not knowing.

-Waiting.

Is this you at the time?

Yes, this my brother, Jimmy and I, and herself.

So on VE day then, her husband's missing,

she hasn't got a clue what's going on.

She's looking after two small children and yet somehow,

in the midst of all that,

she manages to find reasons to be cheerful.

She was helping to put on the street party,

but for her it wasn't over.

There's a certain strength there, isn't there?

For farmers too, the battle was far from finished.

I've found this lovely bit of editorial here from Farmer's Weekly.

It's 1945, May 11th - so it's the first edition after VE Day

and of course the headline is "Victory".

But the key message in here is about the fact

that the struggle still goes on and then it says here,

"The soldier returns from battle - the farmer's battle goes on.

"It will be a very long time indeed before his unending fight

"can see its own kind of victory

"in a healthy, strong, well-fed population

"throughout the countries of the world.

"Tomorrow we must face a future exacting and difficult

"as anything we have known in the last five years.

"We know that and we do not propose to evade it."

After VE day, a new food crisis began.

Across Europe, farmland and infrastructure had been destroyed,

and many war-torn nations could no longer grow their own food.

Mass starvation loomed.

Britain's farmers were called upon to intensify their efforts,

as the nation suddenly had to send thousands of tonnes of food abroad,

including, as an occupying force, to Germany.

The wheat crop of 1945 now became even more critical.

Manor Farm's wheat is almost ready to harvest.

Alex and Peter are making plans for the arrival of the combine.

I carry my measuring stick with me, Peter. Just in case we need

to size up any problems that we are confronted with.

So, over 12 feet long.

Which means we should be able to get it in here.

Might just have to pin back some of this shrubbery.

But before they get the machine in the field,

there's another problem to address.

Until the invention of the combine,

harvesting machinery simply cut the wheat

and left it to dry in the field.

Only after drying would it be threshed.

Now the combine would cut and thresh in one go

and the drying stage would be missed out.

This meant the grain could be too wet to store away.

Farmers had to find a solution.

Well, we should be able to make quite an easy makeshift grain dryer.

Something quite simple.

Yeah, I think it would be a good idea.

If we did bring the grain in moist

and we hadn't made a grain dryer,

the Ministry of Agriculture would be breathing down our necks, asking us why we hadn't.

Making a grain dryer will require some ingenuity.

After VE day, a huge rebuilding programme got underway

in Britain's bomb-damaged cities.

Conventional building materials had been rationed throughout the war

and were now even harder to come by.

-Hi, Pete.

-Hi, Colin, how are you?

Conservation officer Colin Richards has come to help the team improvise.

Well, these are the bits and pieces which should hopefully

make the grain dryer.

I notice they're all irregular in shape and size.

Yes, sorry about that.

So, we're going to have to scratch our heads

as to how we can make this old gate our platform to dry the grain on.

Right, OK.

We've got to create a platform with a fire underneath,

-drive off the moisture and that's our grain dryer.

-Right.

The first job is to dig a hole for the fire to sit in.

But before long...

the rain arrives.

This is why we need the grain dryer.

Almost there.

All year we've been battling with the weather.

Had so much rain this year.

It has not been fun.

This is a nightmare.

It's been the worst year on record for weather.

It really has and I can only hope that those...

heroes of wartime farming

are looking down on us now, Peter...

-And laughing.

-Yeah.

Last turf.

The base of the grain-drying platform

will be a layer of scrap iron, but it needs to be flattened.

-That's it.

-I'll give you a rhythm, come on.

You know to lyrics to Camptown Races?

# Oh, do da de

# Oh, do da de

Perfect.

Look at that.

-Is it flat enough for you?

-Brilliant, Peter.

In 1945, with the threat of German invasion gone,

land defences were broken up, leaving behind handy debris.

That's perfect, isn't it?

Yeah. This is the type of material that was around in 1945.

When they started to dismantle the road blocks and the checkpoints.

Oh, right, yeah.

It was a sort of ready source of material.

-It's recycling at its best.

-Good.

-Right, well, we'll have some more of this, I think, then Peter.

-OK.

The platform will be supported by pillars.

Takes me back to my scrum half days.

Number Eight. Huh!

What we're doing is we're separating the fire from the grain.

And the bricks acts as a radiator, radiating that heat

through the grain, drying it

and allowing you to store it without it going mouldy.

The drying surface must be perfectly level

to ensure the crop is dried evenly.

-You know he's cock-eyed, don't you?

-Right.

We first started out with a whole bunch of scrap metal,

blocks of concrete, an old gate...

and we're actually attempting to do a very technical thing

in reducing the moisture level in grain.

And I was really sceptical

but now looking at this, I'm feeling a little bit more confident

about getting this grain

to the right standard for the Ministry of Agriculture.

When the grain dryer's finished,

the team will be prepared to harvest the wheat.

By 1945, farming had been controlled

by the Government's War Agricultural Executive for six years.

They dictated almost every aspect of farming,

from where to grow crops to what to feed chickens.

Then, in July, just a few weeks after VE day,

farmers were given the chance to shape future food production

when a General Election was held.

-Hello.

-Hello, you must be Nick.

Nice to meet you, come on in.

-I think we've got the kettle on.

-Excellent.

Historian Nick Mansfield has studied the election.

-Peter, Nick.

-How do you do?

-Pleased to meet you.

-Cup of tea?

-Do sit down, do sit down.

-Please.

Wartime Britain was governed by a coalition

led by the Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

Agriculture was central for both main parties

and farmers were faced with a stark choice.

So we've got Mr Churchill's Declaration to the electors.

-The Tory one.

-So that's the Tory Party?

-The Tory one.

The emphasis is on the Empire which will bring in food and so forth.

They've then went on to say, "the wartime directions and controls

"will be progressively reduced as our food situation improves."

So the Tories, then, are proposing

to be very hands off and leave it all to market forces?

That's right.

Whereas Labour are saying,

"in wartime the County War Executive Committees

"have organised production in that way."

As you know, they brought in mechanisation on a huge scale,

fertilisation and so forth.

Now "the Labour Party intends that

"their work shall continue in peace time."

So bearing in mind that we've got the Tory Party

suggesting we should go entirely with market forces in the countryside.

And then the Labour Party's

suggesting that we should hang onto the government procedures

that have been in place during the war.

I mean...

What do you think, in 1945 what would you have gone for?

-It's a very tough question.

-It is, isn't it?

Because I can see benefits of getting rid of the war rules,

but equally I can see

how keeping the status quo was definitely working.

The Government has put up a framework

upon which farming can operate.

So maybe you're thinking "Actually, this is working".

Well, the first line of the Labour Party manifesto is,

"Agriculture is not only a job for the farmers,

"it is also a way of feeding the people."

It's still calling

on that whole wartime "we're all in it together" sort of a spirit.

Yes.

The Labour party emerged victorious,

with one of the biggest landslides in election history.

The party won more purely rural seats

than it ever has before or since.

The idea of government control over farming in peacetime

would now be enshrined in law.

Nothing was ever the same again.

When the Conservatives returned to power in 1951 again,

they accepted the Agricultural Bill entirely.

And the rest is history.

It's the basis of post-war prosperity for British agriculture.

Many aspects of the 1940s legislation

are still in force today.

The grain dryer is built and the wheat is almost ready to bring in.

But before they begin cutting,

the team have one last job they want to tackle -

setting up a party to celebrate the harvest.

There's a wartime scheme they're using for inspiration.

"Holidays at Home" was a government initiative

to counter extreme wartime working conditions.

With many factories operating 24 hours a day,

employees often worked seven days a week.

Ministers knew people would become exhausted without regular breaks

but they didn't want to encourage travel,

as the roads were needed for troops and freight.

The answer was "Holidays at Home".

-KNOCKS AT DOOR

-Anyone home?

Local volunteers were asked to put on festivities.

-You might have seen these around?

-Oh, yes, Holidays at Home.

-Dog show, we can definitely enter the dog show.

-Right.

You're in for that, there's no problem.

Holidays at Home will be the perfect way to round off the harvest

and Alex wants the party to go with a bang

Hello, Steve.

Ah, Alex.

Thanks for coming along.

He's enlisted the help of pyrotechnics expert Steve Allison

to put together a wartime fireworks display,

in the shape of an elephant.

I've heard about elephants being used for exactly these purposes.

So I'm really intrigued to see how the whole thing works.

Yes, it's quite a popular lancework, the elephant.

-You say lancework.

-Lancework, yes.

-Lancework is...pictures in fire.

-OK.

You've got to bear in mind

that fireworks weren't quite as spectacular

and this was the way of getting a sort of moving picture.

Right, OK, so it's got moving parts?

It has. Hopefully the trunk is going to be moving there at the end there.

Wonderful, great.

So you're working from a template that you've sketched out here?

We have, and then the fireworks will be placed on the outline.

And then, when they're lit,

you'll see the pinpoints of light and the picture outlined.

So, the ears.

Now we're going for African elephant here or Indian?

I think that ear size is just perfect.

The African elephant, I think.

African elephant. OK, that's fine by me.

-You happy?

-Yeah, that's good.

Fireworks were banned at the start of the war

and all existing supplies had to be handed over to police.

Factories that made them were converted to produce munitions.

Now, the business end of this structure - the fireworks.

You've got some here on display.

-Are these the ones we're going to be attaching?

-No, I don't think so.

The ones we're attaching are much plainer. These were pre-war.

They would have been in the shops, rather like a selection box.

So these are the sort of things that had actually been banned

by the time we get to 1939/1940?

-Absolutely.

-"War in the Air."

The shape of things to come, unfortunately.

-Yeah, it's rather prophetic actually.

-Very much so.

-What's this one? This is the Jumping Jack.

-That's the Jumping Jack.

-You light that and it would chase you round the garden.

-Wow.

But we're not going to use these fireworks here to attach...?

Eh, no, we're not. We're going to go for a plain white.

-Right, OK.

-That's your lance. Rather like a cigarette.

But I wouldn't smoke it.

The lances will be fastened to the trellis

with double-pointed nails and linked together with quick match -

cotton covered with gunpowder mixture, covered in paper.

This is all incredibly technical

because your worst case scenario is you light one corner of this thing,

it gets halfway up the leg and then just goes out.

Absolutely. You certainly wouldn't see an elephant.

Bit of a disaster, really.

It'll take several hours

and 180 lances to complete the firework elephant.

For three months after VE day,

Britain remained at war in the Far East.

Then, on August 6th,

a terrifying new weapon was unleashes over Japan -

the atomic bomb.

Japan soon surrendered...

..marking the end of the Second World War.

Wild celebrations erupted in the USA...

..but in Britain, a new set of challenges emerged.

Since 1941, the government had been dependent

on financial support from America

and this was soon cut off.

Britain was essentially bankrupt and unable to afford imported food.

So the nation's farms, exhausted from the conflict,

were called on to step up production to even greater heights.

At the farm, the crop is ready to cut.

A wartime combined harvester has arrived.

It's going to be tight!

Look at that.

Oh-ho-ho.

We are talking about half an inch there.

-Half an inch but we're in.

-You are through.

-My word.

-The Allis Chalmers All-Crop 60 was manufactured throughout the 1940s.

Its owner is local farmer Lew Hazel.

Right.

So this is the combined harvester?

This is the thing that is combining, not only the cutting,

-but the threshing of the crop.

-Correct.

-Now you're going to show me how this works, yeah?

-Right, quite simple.

The knife there goes backwards and forwards - cuts the grain.

-The reel goes round and round.

-Knocking it into the blade, yeah?

Then as soon as it's cut, it falls back onto the canvas,

which conveys it up to the top and it goes into the cylinder,

the threshing cylinder.

The threshing cylinder removes the grain from the ears of wheat.

That cylinder goes round.

Oh, I'm with you.

It contains iron bars coated with rubber.

The rubber covering there gives the seed a gentle thrash.

So it's not making aggressive action to it to crack the kernel.

It doesn't bruise or break the seed.

-Correct, yeah.

-OK.

Once the grain has been knocked out, it's separated from the straw

by slatted conveyors moving towards the other side of the combine.

Finally, the grain encounters a series of sieves,

which get rid of any remaining straw.

All of those processes that had once all been done back at the barn,

back in the threshing barn,

-are all being done here on the back of the harvester.

-Correct.

-Does it work, is the question?

-Oh, yes. Well, they claim it will thresh over 100 different crops.

-OK.

So it's got about 100 different plants out there

to thresh through with all the weeds.

But let's hope we get some grain in the bags.

-Absolutely.

-All right. Well, let's see it started.

Modern combine harvesters are self-propelled,

but this one is pulled by a tractor,

which means there are two engines to start.

ENGINE FAILS TO START

Close.

If I never see another crank handle as long as I live, Lew,

I'll die a happy man.

ENGINE STARTS

Two or three minutes for the engine to warm up.

And then we can start cutting?

Right.

-Do you put it on that one?

-Yeah.

As is always the case with these things -

incredibly tense for Peter and myself.

This is our whole year building up to this harvest

and the thing is you're working with kit and equipment

which is over 70 years old.

But here we go.

The combine is off to a good start.

We're making progress,

but there's so much green material in the bottom there.

But the weeds in the crop could cause trouble.

Something's burning.

-Something is burning, isn't it?

-That belt.

That belt is burning.

Damp grass is all jammed in under the reel.

We've had a jam and the problem is there's so much filth,

so much weed in the base of this crop

that the cutter's struggling to get through it

Wet grass, losing traction...

-not going well.

-No.

Weed-ridden wheat was a symptom of the wartime directive

to plough up land that had never been used to grow crops before.

I mean this is the type of land you wouldn't dream

-of putting a crop in, would you, outside of wartime conditions?

-No.

I mean it is the battle for food. This is final push to get this in.

And it's going to take a Herculean and heroic effort to get it in.

Yes.

How's it looking?

Terrible.

-"Terrible", that's not the word we were hoping to hear.

-At least he's honest.

If they can't get the combine working,

the team will have to harvest the field by hand -

taking around four days to cut and two to thresh.

The combine is capable of doing both jobs in less than one day.

Ruth's setting up the harvest celebration -

Holidays at Home.

The Government issued guidelines

on how to get the most out of time off.

Have you seen this menu leaflet suggested for Holidays at Home?

It's quite incredible, I like this bit -

"What about mother? Too often she has to spend long hours in a hot kitchen

"trying to cope with the tremendous appetites of the rest of the family.

"This is all wrong.

"Mother needs a change from the kitchen

"just as much as father needs one from the office

"or the children from school."

But then, you see, "how can this be managed?

"By careful menu planning."

-Basically you've got to spend the week before your holiday...

-Indeed.

-Doing extra work.

-Doing extra work. Hmmm.

Some holiday!

I thought we'd have a go at Monday's sandwiches suggestion.

Sandwiches made with pilchard and cabbage spread.

-Oh, delicious(!)

-That sounds horrible.

The recipe calls for pilchard, cabbage...

vinegar, salt and mustard.

Hmm, now that looks less appetising, doesn't it?

-ALL:

-Yeah.

-I shall be brave and taste a little bit.

-Yeah, let's go.

-OK.

Here goes.

Actually, it's all right.

THEY LAUGH

Genuinely, that's all right.

It is, actually, it's very good.

-Do you know, I might try making that.

-What a surprise!

LEN: Are we ready to go, or what?

An hour of adjustments have unclogged the combine

and the harvest can continue.

This is our...

-our first bag!

-This is it!

If you just put your hand in here, though...

-You can feel the moisture.

-It feels damp.

We'll have to get this...

We'll have to get this dried pretty smartish

But having said that,

this was beyond our wildest expectations about a month ago.

It really is, this is fantastic.

One, two, three. Blimey.

To the grain dryer.

Colin's on hand to get the grain dryer up to temperature.

I like this, Alex. Is this you?

Yeah, little message there, thought it was quite pertinent.

The fire needs to die down before the grain can be dried.

RUTH: Blinking heck!

When you said a grain-drying kiln,

it's not quite what I had in mind, I must admit.

No, it's incredibly makeshift.

Ruth's brought along a batch of the pilchard sandwiches.

I'm starving, wow.

This is definitely one of those recipes

that I was really worried about but it seems to have come out all right.

-Unusual.

-Delicious.

They're good, aren't they? I know.

-Taste of the sea. Yeah.

-It is, actually.

So we're going to have a lovely Holidays At Home, are we?

-I think we will.

-Jolly good.

-If the weather holds.

We've got fireworks as well.

Oh, good stuff.

But we've got a lot of hard work ahead of us.

-They didn't last long, did they?

-That was delicious.

The fire's under control and the drying surface hot,

but before the team can dry any grain,

there's one final calculation they must make.

The wartime target was to store grain

with a moisture content of around 14%.

Any more than that and there was a risk it would go mouldy over winter.

-Can you manage?

-Right.

-You got it?

-Yeah.

The team need to know how wet the crop is to start with.

Historian John Martin has come to help with this crucial stage.

-Hi, Alex.

-Hello, John, how are you, all right?

-Yeah, not too bad.

-Good to see you again.

-Hi, John.

It's not the prettiest grain you'll ever see.

Well, that's very typical of a lot of the grains

which were cut in the war. Weeds were really quite common.

So as a wartime crop, it's not looking too bad?

-No, it looks reasonably good.

-OK.

John's plan is to measure out three pounds of the grain...

That's better.

..dry it, and then re-weigh it.

The amount of weight that's been lost will be the amount of moisture

that was in the original grain.

We've just got a set of scales here

and we're doing a very arbitrary test

but surely the Ministry would have had more high-tech equipment?

Well, they would but it wouldn't have...

Because it was in short supply,

it wouldn't have been available for all farmers.

They've got to, kind of, in the war, improvise as best they can.

You can feel the heat in that.

That is really drying quite quickly.

The grain is beginning to feel different.

Can you feel it?

Yeah.

Shall we scoop this up?

The team are about to find out

how much moisture is in their precious crop.

We have got here two pounds and four ounces.

The grain has lost around a quarter of its original weight,

meaning it had a moisture content of 25%.

This would've been too high for the Ministry of Agriculture,

who were looking for it to be around 14%.

OK, so we know what we've got to do now in terms of drying on here.

We know the thickness of the bed of grain we need,

we know how long we need to cook it on here

-and what type of heat we need to keep up.

-Yeah.

Thing is, we've got a lot of sacks to get through

so I think we should start by getting on with it.

With the makeshift dryer working, the farmers are on course

to bring in the crop at a standard the Ministry would have accepted.

Back in the day when men were men, Peter.

You all right, Peter?

Hold fast, man. On it goes.

That's good, that's good.

We're getting there. OK.

There's another dozen of them sacks.

SHE LAUGHS

How are you feeling about this then, Colin?

If we do this for half an hour, an hour

then I think we'll actually dry this batch.

That's good news. Let's get drying.

You know what this calls for?

-Go on.

-A beer.

-A beer?

-A beer.

Oh, my word!

-Gee.

-Thank you.

The success of the food production campaign

went far beyond officials' pre-war plans.

Never before had output increased so rapidly

in such a short period of time.

John Martin is one of the country's leading authorities

on wartime farming.

Let's get this straight.

If we were to try to and rank the battle for food

and the battle for harvest, as you call it,

up against things like the Battle for Britain, Dunkirk or D-Day,

we can see it as a success, a victory won.

I think it was a clear victory.

We... It saved us from malnutrition and really starvation.

It's a crowning achievement because Britain entered the war

with two-thirds of its population being fed on imported food.

As much as it must have been hard, it must have given people a purpose?

I think that's very true.

It's a neglected story that people committed themselves

to a war effort and the countryside committed itself to winning the war.

-Yeah.

-Hmm.

Well, I think we are sitting on the brink of our own victory.

Everything seems to be going to plan.

-So, cheers.

-Fingers crossed.

-Here's to the heroes of wartime farming.

-All of them.

-Yeah.

By the end of the war, the fields of Britain were producing double what they had in the 1930s.

It was an unprecedented accomplishment.

But it created a legacy which has never left the countryside.

Tractors enabled six and half million acres of grassland

to be ploughed up in areas often now protected by law.

The use of chemical fertilizers nearly tripled.

They've remained part of agriculture ever since

but despite increasing yields, some people feel the chemicals

have caused irreparable damage to the farming landscape.

These are all implements that actually do allow you

to grow crops in areas

that you probably wouldn't normally have grown crops.

It's almost as if you become absolute master over that landscape

and that's frightening.

The policy of slaughtering animals that couldn't be fed

caused livestock numbers to plummet.

Many livestock, now classified as rare breeds,

became rare because of the wartime cull.

The focus has been not upon the farmyard and the farm stock

but out in the fields.

That's felt quite different.

A yard that's empty of animals, empty of that routine,

a very quiet farmyard in some ways.

The war forged a link between government and farmers

that was closer than ever been before.

Governmental control at this level was a necessity

and to be brutally honest, it worked.

What it did ensure is that we did have enough food

to feed every single person on this island.

As a result of the wartime agricultural revolution,

farmers in Britain found themselves on a technological treadmill,

constantly seeking to maximise output.

Eventually, the revolution became the basis

of agriculture as we know it today.

With the combine making quick work of the field

and the grain-drying going well,

the team's work on the farm is coming to an end.

The harvest celebration is under way...

at Holidays at Home.

-Wow.

-Wow, look at this.

That's quite a sight, isn't it?

Weather like this, I'd have a holiday at home.

Decent location for our fireworks.

What have we got, though, for fireworks?

You'll have to wait and see, won't you, Peter?

-I'll have to wait and see.

-It's a surprise.

The Holidays at Home harvest celebration is under way.

Do we all know how to do the Hokey Cokey?

CROWD CHEERS

-Fabulous.

-Excellent.

The Hokey Cokey was a smash hit of the 1940s.

# You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around

# That's what it's all about!

Everybody! # Oh, the Hokey Cokey

# Oh, the Hokey Cokey

# Oh, the Hokey Cokey

# Knees bend, arms stretch, ra, ra, ra. #

CROWD APPLAUDS

As well as transforming agriculture,

the war caused social upheaval across Britain.

That summer saw the first wave of people released from war work.

Among them were some of the two million women who'd been mobilized,

often into jobs traditionally done by men.

Women's lives were so turned upside down during the war.

I know immediately after the war things seemed for

a while to go back to exactly the same way they had.

But they didn't really.

Because inside people's heads something had changed.

And it could never completely go back.

But there was no letup in shortages of everyday items.

Food rationing would continue until 1954.

Other commodities, like clothes, also went on being rationed.

The wartime mentality would have to endure long after the conflict was over.

I think the thing I've enjoyed most about the year

-is the resourcefulness. There's no doubt about it.

-Come on, winners.

-Come on over here and get your prizes.

-There just didn't exist

a concept of throwing things away, and that for me

is probably the biggest lesson that I can take away from that period.

-Have your dogs go down.

-Down. Good boy.

I hope he's not giving marks for handler's appearance.

And the winner is...Henry.

We've forgotten the austere measures that people had to take during this period.

They had to sacrifice things, they had to make do and mend.

And it's not just a mindset of the individual,

it was a mindset of the nation.

There was a collective "Let's just do it."

As night falls, it's time to reveal the firework elephant.

Are we ready?

CROWD APPLAUDS AND CHEERS

It is brilliant.

What a fantastic way to end our year.

After six years of war, to see something so magical!

Bravo!

You can read about the Second World War in books.

But to actually come out here,

to actually try and walk even for a few footsteps in their shoes.

To really understand what it must have been like to be in this

country, to be up against it.

It does change you.

RUTH: It feels like being de-mobbed, back into civvy street.

I should have worn my spare pair of clothes, shouldn't I?

-Look a bit smart, finally.

-Yeah.

I think the thing that has had the biggest impact on me this year has been that talking,

that connecting with people who were really there.

I don't think I'd ever really, truly done that.

I just feel a sense of connection with that generation that

I never thought I would.

It's been a great year.

-Mmm.

-Enjoyed yourself?

Yeah, I'm going to be sad to go.

-Of course, it's a countryside that will never be the same again.

-Changed for ever.

It's so basic, isn't it, food? It underpins everything.

-Is that it?

-Yup, that looks like our ride.

I've really found myself admiring the feats of the people

that worked on the land.

The farmers, the War Ag, the Land Girls, everyone who contributed.

I lift my hat to those people. They really did win the battle for food.

Ding ding!

Where to next?

-I think the seaside.

-I like the seaside.

-Seaside, Ruth?

-That would be good.

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