Wartime Farm - Page 6

Not a lot to say, I never saw flax grown in our area but did learn that the linseed oil I kept my bat in condition with came from flax seed something I never knew.
We did basket making at school as well as raffia weaving but the potato picking trugs were all wire baskets.
The American GMC deuce and half trucks were 1950's and the Jeep probably a bit later.
The bread made from sillage was what many Germans ate it was not here, they did not make that point very clear.
Ruth seems to be well used to plucking and ploating birds and rabbit, all the women in our family could do that without turning a hair, few could do it today.
Next week they come to VE day which was not the end of the war as a lot of people think it went on until August 5th 1945 with Victory over Japan. All the effort turned from the war in Europe to what we thought would be a very long war in the Pacific.
Then we got the austere years when rations were reduced and bread rationed for the first time, it was never rationed during the war. That went on until the 1950's, ten to twelve years of shortages, it was not war ends all back to normal but things getting much worse. How did our mothers manage?

Frank.

Good morning All.

I thought a lot of what was shown on this weeks programme was not relevant.  Racing pigeons were not kept by farmers and I couldn't see much point in including it in the programme. As for the bread,urgh, why show that it was not eaten here,  I really can't see why it was included. They got round to the German Prisoners working on the land, which was quite interesting.

Living here in Lincolnshire, quite a lot of flax is still grown for the pharmaceutical industry, it looks lovely when you look across the fields when it is in flower. We found the preparation for use as a  thread interesting. I had never given a thought to how it ended up as fabric before.

As we are sometimes given game birds, or buy them in the feather, my husband plucks them and I draw them, it's something I've always done. I think it was my Gran who showed me how. A lot of people today won't even eat pheasant etc, let alone deal with them, the skills are being lost because anything you want you can buy, oven ready. As you say Frank, things didn't get any better for a long time after the war. It must have been a nightmare for women to try to feed a family, and keep them warm and clothed.

I have found the programme a bit disappointing compared to the others in the series, but will continue to watch it until the end.

Chris.

I was thinking, since the price of fuel is rocketing,that idea of cooking with just a box and straw ,slow cooking I think its called,a very good one.Except of course a bale of hay has gone up in price.A bit messy for the modern kitchen but a shed or conservatory might do.what you can do in a crisis's,thinking back to the seventies when strikes hit the supply and you had organise your life accordingly to when the power turned off.

Flowering Rose, methinks you may have the wrong idea, the food in the container had to be brought to the boil then put in the hay box, it then slow cooks because the straw holds the residual heat. Once in the hay box it will take 2-3 hours to cook through.
The Army used and still use hay boxes only they are a double skin container well insulated on the outside and then the second skin filled with boiling water. The food containers are brought to the boil sealed and put in the cavity of the box which is sealed and left until needed cooking as it sits there.
My wife in the 70's would put her one pot dishes in the oven and switch it on for a slow cook overnight. It could then be warmed up on a camping stove when needed.

Frank.

The series was made spring and summer this year as they were wet each programme and they did mention lost harvest during the war which made me think.
I know memory of weather is often fickle but do not remember a bad summer during that time, we always got the harvest in although some would be harvested by hand after wind had blown the crops down, it came in for animal feed.
!939-40 winter we had a lot of snow but a glorious summer. !940-41 a cold winter, I have pictures of me sledging on the banks behind our house, then mild times until the winter of 1944-45 the coldest winter for a long time and the Battle of the Bulge. The Summer of 44 we had a bad June July then a hot long period.
The worst winter was 1946-47 when people could climb out of the bedroom window onto the snow, places were cut off for months and they were still digging trains out of cuttings in March, that again was followed by a long hot summer with heath fires in Hampshire, the dry period set back the crops at a time we really needed them.
Near the village were water meadows which would flood to three or four inches deep then freeze, the best skating rink possible and the village would turn out to skate. We had iron skates that clipped onto our boots like the roller skates, fun would be had by all, usually there would be a brazier roasting chestnuts we never seemed to be short of them in the war.

Frank.

Well that's it then, the end of the Wartime Farm series.

Funnily enough although it tended to be a bit weak in places, I shall miss it.

Didn't fancy that potato pie, we really are very luck today to have anything in the food line we fancy provided we have the money to pay for it. I was only 2 when the war ended but can remember rationing, although I never remember going without anything. We always seem to have plenty to eat, my mother was obviously a good manager, but then it's like they say, what you've never had you've never missed.

I have still got my dentity card along with quite a lot of bits and bobs from that time that my mother kept.

Do you think they have gone as far as they can go with this type of programme or will they come up with a spin off.? We will have to wait and see

Chris.

Chris I will miss watching Ruth who seemed the more practical of the three, she was not afraid to get stuck into anything.
Never saw a grain drier it got spread on boards under cover and air dried although most years it dried stooked in the field, grass driers were around in the 1950's but silage was better.
The potato would have been cooked dried then made into flour it was used a lot in pastry.
The farming industry went mechanised and with all kinds of subsidies took a different path. Many Farm labourers were sacked put out of tied cottages and some because of poor wages left of their own accord for Industry which boomed in the 1950-60. Farming as I had known it vanished, Welly Hill became Dairy and crops, the milk once sold from a cart went to the Milk Marketing board, grain silo's appeared instead of ricks or stacks and the silage pit took up half the yard.
It had to change as demand grew though making a programme about it would not be feasible unless they just had bigger and better machines on it, "Farming Top Gear" perhaps.

Frank.