powerrabbit

The second episode of this series was on earlier, this week covering rationing, making silage, the black market and organising the production priorities on the farm by disposing of livestock in order to concentrate on food crops for human consumption. It was considered that livestock for meat was of less importance to the feeding of the Nation as the economics of having to keep them for so long before they could be eaten would be better served by getting rid of them in favour of crops that could be directly eaten by the human population as soon as they were fit to harvest instead of putting the crops through animals first. The sugar beet lifter was interesting but they had to work out how best to use it and get it to do what it was supposed to do. The milking cows were kept as were the egg producing chickens.

Martin and Ged, known on the Forum as Mr Originals have almost completed their new model of a David Brown 50TD crawler with rear ripper and front blade. This model will be in both red agricultural and industrial yellow. 50 models in total will be built, 25 of each. Here are some pictures of the prototype Courtesy of Martin. The tracks will be painted.

Sue, you're quite correct on the message of the mole drainer scene and it was the same for other 'wearing' parts like plough shares, when they were almost worn out the blacksmith would forge weld exta bits of scrap iron on to them to build them up again. Some may think that plough shares being an essential requisite to the production of food would be readily available as they were needed in order to plough the land but farms were allocated an amount of shares depending on the acreage to be ploughed. As for the ploughing by night scene, that never took place here as you would not waste precious oil in lamps when you needed it in the buildings and domestic house, again fuel oil was allocated or rationed in the same way, this is why we have British summertime (BST) and GMT when the clocks are put forward and back, it all started during the War in order to give farmers an extra hour of daylight in the summer months for harvest, not a lot of people know that, in fact they did start by putting the clocks back 2 hours but it didn't work and daylight is still daylight no matter what the hands on the clock said and in the high summer it's getting pretty light at around 4am and, when we do have a decent summer, doesn't get really dark untill nearly 11pm and farmers normally worked in the fields by the length of the day and not by the time on the clock, they were 'up with the lark and to bed with the crows'.

Something else that may be of interest was the time in spring 1943 when the German bombers were targeting Plymouth one night some carried on to bomb Exeter. On this particular night one of the bombers got seperated from the rest and was being attact by a Spitfire. Where I'm located, if you draw a straight line from Plymouth to Exeter, I'm right on that line, anyway, the Spitfire started shooting up the bomber just before it reached the outskirts of our village and had to eject its load of bombs, this all being witnessed from the ground by my Mother, Father and the evacuee mother who at this precice time was walking the track from the village back to the farm and watched as events unfolded. The bomber released its load and burst into flames, the first bomb landed 1/2 a mile to the South West of the farm in some waste land right on top of a very large flat rock and exploded, the blast and shrapnel cutting down 3 small trees and a large mature Scots pine, the pine was cut through just as if you had swiped through it with a sharp knife, no-one knew this until the tree died and fell over because it remained upright. The next bomb dropped right beside my Mother, Father and evacuee only a matter of yards away from them, fortunateley, it dropped in the stream that was 6 feet lower than the track and exploded. My Father said that the next thing he was aware of was picking himself up off the ground covered in stones and earth from the blast right on the edge of the bomb crater that was 20 feet or more deep, my Mother and the evacuee were covered as well but fortunateley they all escaped completeley unscathed, dusted themselves off and walked the 1/2 mile back to the farm. The next morning the evacuee was missing her handbag so my Father went back to try and find it, he eventually did, it was jammed under a large rock. He opened it, as you would, to look inside and the lining of the bag was shredded but all the contents were there and still intact, even the mirror was still in one piece. Now, how lucky was that! One of the bombs dropped in the neighbouring parish, but would you believe it, right beside one of the cob barns on my Mothers cousins farm, this bomb split and opened up two walls of the barn but later filled and repaired with cement and concrete blocks, it remains like this to this day. The bomber came down 7 miles further on just outside Exeter.

Just thought I would post up a big thank you to all of you that have given this topic a big 'thumbs up', it's really appreciated and pleasing to know that you all like what you're reading and replying to it. I know that we've been going slightly off tangent but then, what topic do we actually keep to the letter of the title to?, not many. I still think that all are still quite relavent though and without the drive to at least double home food production at that time, all aspects, not only farming, could have resulted in a very different outcome post 1945. After all, it is said that 'an Army marches on its stomach'. Let's sincereley hope that those sort of time will never ever return.

A cousin of mine, one of my Fathers Sisters sons, has my Uncles Military records and his medals, he said a little while ago when we were talking at an Aunts funeral about it that he would let me have them to keep seeing that I had the rest of the family records and photos on my Fathers side of the family but I've not seen them yet but he's the sort of chap that won't forget, it will all turn up out of the blue one day.

I have now only one relative alive that lived through the last War, he is my Uncle, Mothers Brother, who is now well in his 80's and his wife, I have all the information he has stored in his head but I've asked him to write it down as he has 3 sons, 4 grandchildren and up to now 1 great grandchild. My late Fathers next up eldest Brother, as I mentioned before, was already in the Regular Army at the outbreak of War, Devonshire Regiment, Tank Corps. As I also mentioned, he spent part of the War fighting in North Africa and was taken prisoner at Tobruk by the Italians in 1941 and transported to a POW camp back in Italy where from one of the camps, he and others escaped and he, with two other POW's spent 3 years 'on the run' and re-captured 2 weeks before the end of the War in May 1945. I have a typed 18 page written account of this period in his life which makes very interesting reading and has never been published or made public. I reckon that when the 70th anniversary of the end of the last War comes around in 2015 there will be a demand for this type of material by local media, there usually is on these aniversaries. All part of the Family history.

Unfortunateley now with the passage of time, the great majority of the generation that experienced these times are now no longer with us but there are those of us that have been told by our parents and grandparents of their experienses and life at the time which we should pass on to the next generation. For those that still have their relations that went through it all please try and get them to record their memories in some way and if they can provide photographs and written documentation of the time, put it all together and look after it. I feel that we should look after these memories and pass them on again if only to remind our successors in life of the vast and important contribution that our forebears made to our lives and really shaped the Country into what it is now, if they didn't do what they did, we would be in a very different place now. Our lives are shaped by our history and no-one should ever be allowed to forget that.

In my village Bill in 1950 you could buy a 3 bedroom house for just ove £500.

Isn't it rather strange that in the farming comunity that the older generation that went through these times always spoke of them being good times, they never really mentioned the negatives such as rationing, yes they did suffer rationing as all did, petrol was rationed I know but most other things seemed to be quite plentiful, their needs were very little as food was the priority and everything else came second. My Father was a jobbing farm labourer and worked on several farms within either walking or cycling distance but spent most of this time on one farm, my Grandparents, where of course, although he knew her from a very small child as they went to school together, he ended up marrying my Mother. Father always said that he wanted to join the Navy and although he passed his medical 'A1', farming being a 'reserved occupation' they, the Ministry of War, would not let him go, his next up elder brother was already in the Regular Army and fighting in Tobruk, that's another very long and interesting story in itself. Fathers wages at that time was 10 shillings a week and out of those wages he had to pay his own lodge, clothing and boots, he later joined the Home Guard, another interesting story with lots of tales that could be told. On my Grandparents farm, which was about 80 acres, they kept a large flock of sheep, a couple of milking cows, a few pigs and a few beef cattle, my Grandmother used to rear about 50 turlkeys every year for the Christmas local trade and also kept laying hens, ducks and geese. The family consisted of my Mother, her Brother and parents, plus my Father was there from very early mornings to whatever time he went home again and in certain times of the year that might not be until 2am the next morning. Not only did my Grandmother feed all but also any casual workers that came at harvest and potato picking time, she also had a whole family of refugees living at the farm from London, mother and four children from a baby in arms to a 9 year old, 3 girls and the boy. Four of the farms in the parrish plus another in one of the neighbouring parrishes were all farmed by our family relations, cousins, uncles and great uncles, when they were harvesting they would all help each other and when they were slaughtering animals they would do the same, one would kill a bullock one month, one would kill a couple of pigs a month or two later, another would be killing a few sheep later on and so-on, all the 'family' would take part and the meat shared out between them so one would go home with some beef, one some pork, another with mutton etc, any surplus would be sold (legitimateley, not on the 'black market', I think the best cuts and joints would be sold and the lesser less valuable joints and most of the offal they would consume themselves. The story continues....................... Going back to the programme, which was repeated last night, the chap that was 'playing the part' of the Civil Defence officer was very interesting, this of course in the early years of WW11 was the fore-runner of the Home Guard. Funny coincedence that I went to the local big boot sale early this morning and bought a period Civil Defence Corps pin badge for a mere £2.

My Father told me years ago that back in the War the local tennant farmers would have the local rabbit trapper in and he would walk around the farm looking at the burrows in the hedges and the rabbit runs or the amount of cerials around the headlands that had been nibbled and estimate how many rabbits were in residence, the trapper would then give the farmer a price to catch the rabbits and over the year, the price that the trapper gave the farmer paid the farmers rent. Rabbits were pretty thick back then and a valuable commodity, the majority of the rabbits my Father caught were put in a wicker basket, hamper type container, taken to the little railway branch line and sent to a butcher in Exeter, they were worth 6d each, that's 5p in todays money. The surplus eggs went the same way for 6 shillings a dozen, (60p) broiler chickens, oven ready, were 12 shillings each. They managed to make quite a decent living.

That's why so many kids today are so wishy-washy looking and have all these allergies, not enough outdoor life and food that's too clean! We never suffered allergies and always had a good colour to our skins, only had a bath every evening, not a shower 5 times a day, never had a day off school unless we were needed at home to work, the dog always licked the plate after mealtimes and then washed in the sink by hand, any leftovers from mealtimes were saved and used up that evening or next day, bubble and squeek for breakfast with fried egg, bread and fat bacon, anything else, including the bones were thrown in a big pot and boiled to death on the stove for at least 2 days for a good soup or if you made up some suet dumplings and dropped them in, a real good rib-sticking stew, now, if anything is left over or 'out of date' it's in the bin, we were brought up with the statement that 'if it hasn't started growing fur, then you can still eat it. There was no obesity like there is now, if you were a bit on the plump side or a bit chubby, it was your nature, not your diet, I never saw a fat farmer, not in that sense anyway, they were on the whole a very lean breed because they worked it off. Talking of fat bacon, a pig was never killed until it was at least 18 to 20 score in weight, (20 pounds to a score so work that out!) now thy're killed at 5 score, mere piglets! And every other part was used, as we say, the only part of a pig you can't use is its squeel. I could go on. I'm sure I will.

So was I! Mother used to make me sit on a hard wooden chair with my arms up, about 2 foot apart and as she ran back the oild jumper, would wind it around my hands to make a 'skein' and then when she thought there was enough would then proceed, with my arms aching like hell, wind it off int balls, I don't miss that at all! I also remember vividly in the latter part of the winter, freezing with the cold, sitting in the shed with my Father sorting out the hessian sacks and cutting up the really bad ones and with a bagging needle and binder twine sowing the peices from the rough bags over the mouse and rat holes in the better ones ready for the next corn harvest, no such thing as grain bins or silo's back then, another tedious job, that was until 'Copydex' came about, used to get it in a gallon can, used that then on the repair of sacks.

It's all tucked safeley away Bill. My Mother used to save odd bits of material as well Sue, I think most women of that generation did, material and cloth being not so cheap and plentiful, she used to purchase our working trousers all the same colour and when we wnt through the knees handling bales of hay and straw she used to cut sqares out of one worn out pair to use as patches to sow into the other pair. Sheets from the beds were cut up and hemmed around the edges to stop 'running' and were then used as dishcloths, dusters, polishing rags and hankerchiefs. Any old rather holey and worn out woolen jumpers were un-picked, the good yarn rolled up in balls and re-knitted up as wooly hats, gloves and boot socks and any short bits of wool was saved to darn socks with. I recall her sitting for hours knitting, darning, patching and even making her and my Sisters dresses and blouses from patterns out of 'Womans Weekly' in the 1960's.

I have my Grandmothers wartime diary and 'accounts' books from the early 1940's and also her recipe book, these make fascinating reading, in the diary it records the day to day working and jobs carried out on the farm, her 'accounts' record their sales, rabbits, eggs, potatoes etc and wages paid to the seasonal labour, expences such as 'new pair of boots', 'baccy', oil for lamps, cloth and material for her to make, mend and 'make do' clothing. A very interesting read and something I shall always keep. I also have her shool work for the year 1901 when she was 8 years old.

The stories my Father used to tell about the goings on in the War, I wish that he had written it down, the way everyone clubbed together, especially in the rural areas, farming families used to help each other at harvest and other times, swap foodstuffs, how when they killed an animal that they had to have a lookout posted just in case the local Bobby happened to come along or more usually bung him a joint of meat or two. Poching was just a big an issue back then as it still is now, rabbits were a valuable food source and the land was thick with them but unscrupulous villagers and their long-dogs would go out in the fields at night with their long nets and virtually clear a farm of rabbits, my Father used to say that he'd eaten so many rabbits that he started growing fur! How things have changed, both in the cities and uot in the country, there is now very little sense of community, everyone keeps themselves to themselves and as for growing and producing their own food to a certain degree, they have'nt a clue.

And in keeping with the original theme of the topic, everyone who had the room and some sort of shelter kept at least one pig in their back garden during the last War and their 'waste' was then used on the garden to grow all their veg. It's a well known fact that the internals of a pig is very close to that of a human so no-one should baulk at eating produce fertalised by either sort. Mind you, you do have to leave the heap to mature, no good using it 'fresh'!

I was always told Sue, and especially true in the case of my relatives farm, that wherever there was tomato plants growing on a heap of 'dung ", that"s where the contents of the toilet was dumped. Remember it well in the summer when my Aunt would send her little boy upthe field to pick the ripe tomatoes. Boy were they good, big, ripe and full of flavour!

I remember those times as well Sue. The very early 1950's were still a time of austerity, if that's the right word, my closest farming relations, one family in particular, had no mains electric, pumped their water from a well in the yard, the overflow from the well ran into a great big grannite trough in the yard behind the house in which they immersed the milk churns every day to cool the milk. The main toilet was in a stone outhouse across the yard, it had a rough plank with 2 holes in it over the top of a deep pit that was periodically cleaned out with a shovel from behind the s***t house by hand. The only home entertainment was the battery radio on the long kitchen table. In the winter the big open hearth fire in the kitchen when lit was so full of smoke you could hardly breath or look through it. Water was heated and washing of clothes was done in the back scullery in a wood fired 'copper'. There was also a long narrow room integrated along the last 3/4 length of the house that had just a small window that had a sheet of perforated zinc in the frame instead of glass, in this room all the food products were kept and stored, it was known as 'the dairy', this room was so cold, even in the height of the good summers we used to have that as soon as you entered the cold air would hit you and if you stayed in there for more than 5 minutes your teeth would start to chatter. Oh, those were the days.

They didn't quite get the mole drainer right and I don't think it takes quite 9 months for a field of wheat from drilling to harvest. But then, we that know always look at these sort of programmes in a critical way. Super programme, will look forward to watching the rest of the series. Oh, and I didn't think the Feild Marshall and Fordson E27N came out until around 1947 did they?

New series starting now 8.00pm BBC2.

Click on his username and take a look at his history and feedback, that will give you a good idea wheather he's a scammer or just a bad egg.

Yes, just report the buyer to eBay stating the situation but you may still be charged the listing fee but reimbursed the end price fee.

The only person that I know of that did this model in this scale was Malcs Models. Wheather he's still going or no I'm not sure. Several of his builds do turn up at the ToyTrac fairs Wincanton racecourse in October.

Went to the regular Sunday car boot in Exeter market this morning and picked up a few bits and bobs, 2 wind up wrist watches to add to my collection, a nice solid silver 'twizzle' stick, a quantity of old clock keys and others and a brand new still sealed in the box 7" 1/2 screen portable digital TV and a couple of Poole pottery items.