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Product Description
Product Description
Beans as bullets', 'Vegetables for Victory' and 'Cloches against Hitler': these slogans convey just how vital gardening and growing food were to the British war effort during the Second World War. Exhorted to 'Grow More Food', then to 'Dig for Victory', Britain's 'allotment army' was soon out in force, growing as many vegetables as possible in suburban allotments, private gardens, even the grounds of stately homes. Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and ephemera relating to the 'Dig For Victory' campaign, this expertly researched, highly engaging and informative account also includes archive images of home front gardening, garden produce and advertisements.
About the Author
Twigs Way is a professional garden historian, author and freelance lecturer, whose credits include Channel Four's 'Lost Gardens' and, for Sabrestorm Publishing, the Allotment & Garden Guide: A monthly guide to better wartime gardening". Mike Brown is an author, broadcaster and authority on the Home Front, whose books include 'The 1940s Look', 'The 1950s Look' and 'Air Raids & Ration Books' (Sabrestorm).
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Garden writing today still offers much the same advice as it did during the war year - this is quite obvious if you read through 'Digging for Victory', which is a very comprehensive look at home vegetable production through the Second World War period and contains images of much of the literature produced at the time.
I have a soft spot for the Home Front period, and so I very much enjoyed looking through this book, with its many images of life back then. Unlike some books, however, this one doesn't toe the patriotic line and is happy to admit that people weren't always happy to 'dig for victory' and that some of the propaganda campaigns fell flat.
Even though I have read several books on this topic, this one still had new information that I hadn't come across before. It goes beyond 'Mr Middleton' to mention other garden writers - I learned about Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, who had an interest in herbs and wrote 'Uncommon Vegetables, how to grow and how to cook'.
It sounds as though most of the garden writing of the time was aimed (as it is now) as amateurs and making life easy for time-strapped gardeners. It would also have had to advocate thrift and make do and mend, as many gardening sundries and products would have been in short supply.
Gardening advice crept into every walk of life, with vicars being given horticultural notes to work into their sermons, and gardeners being encouraged by pesticide advice dispensed at Boots the Chemist. Apparently 10 tons of pigeon manure were scraped from a church in Kensington and given to local allotment holders to use as fertilizer, which was otherwise in short supply.
There's an insight into the history of the compost heap and a rather disturbing chapter on pests and diseases. The gardening press acknowledged the existence of 'patriotic' beneficial insects, but pests were 'Hitler's Allies' and blitzed out of existence with chemicals that are no longer available for amateur use.
The book contains a chapter on livestock, covering hens, rabbits, pigs and goats - with some interesting snippets on what they were all fed on. Many gardeners were as squeamish then as they are now about killing their animals, and it's hard to imagine the effects of untrained people killing larger animals.
This is a lovely hardback book, packed with information and lovely pictures. If you enjoy reading about the Home Front and the Digging for Victory campaign, or the history of gardening, then it would make a great addition to your library. There's a lovely touch right at the back, as the second page of the index is printed on the inside of the back cover. Saving paper - how very appropriate!
I have a soft spot for the Home Front period, and so I very much enjoyed looking through this book, with its many images of life back then. Unlike some books, however, this one doesn't toe the patriotic line and is happy to admit that people weren't always happy to 'dig for victory' and that some of the propaganda campaigns fell flat.
Even though I have read several books on this topic, this one still had new information that I hadn't come across before. It goes beyond 'Mr Middleton' to mention other garden writers - I learned about Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, who had an interest in herbs and wrote 'Uncommon Vegetables, how to grow and how to cook'.
It sounds as though most of the garden writing of the time was aimed (as it is now) as amateurs and making life easy for time-strapped gardeners. It would also have had to advocate thrift and make do and mend, as many gardening sundries and products would have been in short supply.
Gardening advice crept into every walk of life, with vicars being given horticultural notes to work into their sermons, and gardeners being encouraged by pesticide advice dispensed at Boots the Chemist. Apparently 10 tons of pigeon manure were scraped from a church in Kensington and given to local allotment holders to use as fertilizer, which was otherwise in short supply.
There's an insight into the history of the compost heap and a rather disturbing chapter on pests and diseases. The gardening press acknowledged the existence of 'patriotic' beneficial insects, but pests were 'Hitler's Allies' and blitzed out of existence with chemicals that are no longer available for amateur use.
The book contains a chapter on livestock, covering hens, rabbits, pigs and goats - with some interesting snippets on what they were all fed on. Many gardeners were as squeamish then as they are now about killing their animals, and it's hard to imagine the effects of untrained people killing larger animals.
This is a lovely hardback book, packed with information and lovely pictures. If you enjoy reading about the Home Front and the Digging for Victory campaign, or the history of gardening, then it would make a great addition to your library. There's a lovely touch right at the back, as the second page of the index is printed on the inside of the back cover. Saving paper - how very appropriate!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Digging for Victory by Twigs Way and Mike Brown is a fascinating blend of gardening, history and social history. It tells the story of the government's WWII Dig for Victory campaign, richly illustrated by the stories of the people (or their offspring) who took up the call to grow more food, together with examples from the masses of ministry advisory leaflets, advertisements and articles from gardening magazines and books published at the time.
The story is told more or less in chronological order with varied side trips taken to view the role of the media, the changing role of women, the country house battleground and the involvement of children. It wasn't just vegetables either: the keeping of livestock such as pigs, chickens, rabbits and even goats was encouraged to help eke out the ration book and even provide a useful surplus for bartering. There's also the dawn of the gardening personality - in the form of Mr Middleton. He was much in demand for personal appearances at the time and one of his books has been reissued recently too.
I hadn't appreciated how the outbreak of war contributed to the demise of our orchards (many were grubbed up and re-planted with potatoes), how growing strawberries wasn't encouraged initially (considered a luxury crop, but later viewed as a morale booster) and the government's initial concerns that too many potatoes were being grown.
I hadn't realised that nurseries were actively involved in the campaign (though quite logical when you think about it) and how the government restricted the land used for their pre-war business to just 10%. Thus many valuable garden cultivars were lost during this time and the loss of income meant many nurseries went to the wall. It's also ironic that the campaign was 'exported' to Germany and Russia post-war to help these countries solve the problem of their starving populations.
It's amusing for us today to see nearly everything couched in terms of the battlefield - Cloches against Hitler!, Lighten the Navy's task!, Beans as Bullets! - but it also serves to illustrate how desperate things were at the time. By the end of the war around 1.4 million allotments were in production, each estimated to produce enough food to feed a family of 5 for a year.
Digging for Victory gives a thorough insight into how the issues of food security and being relatively self-sufficient as a nation have been tackled in the past and gives us much to think about today. Can these issues be tackled in the same way again? Probably not, as I believe we as a people aren't so accepting of government doctrine these days, plus we have less land available for cultivation and a larger population to feed. However, that doesn't mean to say there aren't lessons to be learnt and ideas which could be used.
It's a fascinating read and one I can thoroughly recommend.
The story is told more or less in chronological order with varied side trips taken to view the role of the media, the changing role of women, the country house battleground and the involvement of children. It wasn't just vegetables either: the keeping of livestock such as pigs, chickens, rabbits and even goats was encouraged to help eke out the ration book and even provide a useful surplus for bartering. There's also the dawn of the gardening personality - in the form of Mr Middleton. He was much in demand for personal appearances at the time and one of his books has been reissued recently too.
I hadn't appreciated how the outbreak of war contributed to the demise of our orchards (many were grubbed up and re-planted with potatoes), how growing strawberries wasn't encouraged initially (considered a luxury crop, but later viewed as a morale booster) and the government's initial concerns that too many potatoes were being grown.
I hadn't realised that nurseries were actively involved in the campaign (though quite logical when you think about it) and how the government restricted the land used for their pre-war business to just 10%. Thus many valuable garden cultivars were lost during this time and the loss of income meant many nurseries went to the wall. It's also ironic that the campaign was 'exported' to Germany and Russia post-war to help these countries solve the problem of their starving populations.
It's amusing for us today to see nearly everything couched in terms of the battlefield - Cloches against Hitler!, Lighten the Navy's task!, Beans as Bullets! - but it also serves to illustrate how desperate things were at the time. By the end of the war around 1.4 million allotments were in production, each estimated to produce enough food to feed a family of 5 for a year.
Digging for Victory gives a thorough insight into how the issues of food security and being relatively self-sufficient as a nation have been tackled in the past and gives us much to think about today. Can these issues be tackled in the same way again? Probably not, as I believe we as a people aren't so accepting of government doctrine these days, plus we have less land available for cultivation and a larger population to feed. However, that doesn't mean to say there aren't lessons to be learnt and ideas which could be used.
It's a fascinating read and one I can thoroughly recommend.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Inspiring
29 Aug 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I found this book "Inspiring". In a world where our food is shipped from all over this book points out how one small country and it's citizens found ways to supply all their needs locally. This book could be used as a blueprint to lower out carbon foot prints and stave off further global warming.
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