A Green and Pleasant Land

by Ursula Buchan

  Through these media, the populace was told or shown how to rotate crops, improve their soil, make a successful compost heap and, most importantly, grow vegetables for picking or using through the winter, when they were scarcest and most expensive in the shops.

  The first wartime gardening bulletin to emanate from MAF was ‘Food from the Garden’, ‘Growmore’ Bulletin No. 1. Costing 3d, it was published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office in September 1939, having been prepared during the previous spring and summer. It was one fruit of E. A. Bunyard’s report. Its production committee consisted of representatives from the Royal Horticultural Society, together with the horticultural research stations such as Long Ashton and East Malling, the Horticultural Education Association, the National Allotments Society and the MAF Inspectorate.

  ‘Food from the Garden’ was a thin booklet, very much aimed at novices rather than experienced gardeners, and containing a detailed all-year cropping and rotation plan, a table of crop harvest periods, lists of fertilisers and their alternatives, readily obtainable varieties of vegetables and indications of the amount of seed required. There were notes on digging, manuring and how to grow individual vegetable sorts. It sold 400,000 copies in all.

  The booklet, however, became the subject of a sustained attack in the specialist press by gardening experts and experienced allotmenteers, throughout 1939 and into 1940. The chorus of criticism from professional gardeners, especially in the north of England and Scotland, was deafening. They complained that too little space in the cropping plan was given to potatoes, that plant spacings were too tight, that the var-ieties chosen were not the most suitable, that there were ridiculous typographical errors, that the booklet was published at a time of year when few seeds could be sown outside – although that was something that should have been laid at the door of Adolf Hitler rather than the Minister of Agriculture – and that not enough regard was given to conditions and requirements in colder areas, particularly the north of England and Scotland.20

  A Mr Pearl, who had helped write the booklet, replied robustly to the critics in early January 1940:

  Obviously the official cropping plan differs widely from the peace-time cropping of many allotments, but if examined fairly it will be found to provide the basis for the production of those vegetables especially needed in war-time. For instance, there will be an increased need for leafy, green vegetables and salads to take the place of imported Oranges and other fruits of protective food value, particularly in the early months of the year. There is need here for an appetizing range of foods to supplement the eternal Cabbage. Broad Beans and similar protein-yielding seed vegetables may have to replace restricted meat and fish supplies . . . Continuous heavy production from every available inch of ground is necessary, and the importance of the thorough rotation and cultivation implied in the three-year cropping plan will be obvious.21

  Despite this spirited defence, MAF bowed to pressure and a revised bulletin was published in January 1941, retitled a month later as ‘Dig for Victory Leaflet No. 1’. According to Robert Hudson, Dorman-Smith’s successor, who wrote the foreword: ‘It has now been carefully revised in the light of experience and changes in the general situation . . .’22, which was one way of putting it. Like Mr Pearl, Hudson emphasised that the preponderance of green leaf vegetables in the plan was the consequence of the need to replace vitamins normally found in imported fruit, a factor of great importance to the nutritionists who advised the Minister. The area designated for potatoes was increased to please northern gardeners in particular.

  Three further ‘Growmore’ bulletins were published in 1939 and 1940: ‘Pests and Diseases in the Vegetable Garden’, ‘Preserves from the Garden’ and ‘Fruit from the Garden’. Twenty-one free ‘Dig for Victory’ leaflets would follow, with subjects ranging from how to make a compost heap to how to store vegetables for the winter.

  However, the immediate call to action in late 1939 had disappointing results, at least partly because the first winter of the war was so harsh. The weather was abnormally cold and snowy, so that hardy vegetables like cabbages froze in the ground, and the all-important digging was delayed, with the result that the uncertainty of the new ‘army’ of diggers increased. At the time when the Ministry was negotiating for a ‘propaganda broadcast’ in late February 1940 consisting of a discussion between a parks superintendent, an enthusiastic allotment holder and a man in the street, John Green, head of the Talks Department at the BBC, wrote: ‘The situation at the moment is apparently critical because the Minister’s appeal has only met with local success and the national response is below expectation.’23

  With this comparative failure as a spur, the government publicity campaign, launched in the autumn of 1940, was better thought-out and organised, and it enjoyed rather greater success than its predecessor. The press had taken up the expression ‘Dig for Victory’ so enthusiastically, and used it so widely, that the Ministry of Agriculture employed the slogan for all its publicity banners and its posters, introducing a photographic image of a magnified left boot on a spade. The foot may or may not have belonged to a Mr W. H. McKie of Acton (see Chapter Six). This foot and spade logo, printed small or large, as either a photograph or a drawing from the photograph, appeared on all the subsequent campaign posters, and became one of the most instantly recognisable images of wartime government publicity. It came to exemplify the idea of the honest-to-goodness, down-to-earth yet highly purposeful effort of amateur gardeners which the Ministry was so keen to promote.24

  Unfortunately, the 1940 campaign launch proved rather too dramatic for anyone’s liking. The Lord Mayor of London had invited mayors from all over the country to meet at the Mansion House in the City of London on 10 September to hear Robert Hudson’s Dig for Victory appeal. But, as Roy Hay, a gardening journalist working for the Ministry of Agriculture on the Dig for Victory campaign, recalled:

  ‘Everything would have been all right if Hitler had not had the idea of wiping out London’s Dockland.25 We set off that morning for the Mansion House full of doubts whether we would ever get there or, even if we did, whether the Mayoral kitchens would have any gas or electricity to warm up the turtle soup. Buses were running as far as Holborn Viaduct, but Cheapside was a tangle of fire engines and demolition gangs. Great clouds of black smoke swirled round the Bank of England, and rivers of filthy water ran in the gutters. By devious routes we reached the Mansion House, tripping over miles of hosepipes and dodging barriers, ignoring the shouts of the City police . . . Would the Mayors risk coming to London when the bombs were falling as thick as coconuts in a hurricane on a South Sea Island? Some did and some did not . . . There were as many empty places as guests when we finally sat down at the table. With the turtle soup came an air raid warning. All the speeches were punctuated by the clanging of fire and ambulance bells. Even the Ministry’s publicity department could scarcely have staged a more dramatic setting for the Minister’s appeal. Mr Hudson was direct and forceful – as always. He told the Mayors to go home and see to it that the allotments committee was made the most important committee of their Council instead of being the Cinderella of them all. With the warehouses burning all along the river, everybody was impressed.26

  Hudson requested that there be another 500,000 allotments by the spring of 1941, to make two million in total, and continued: ‘if we could get the number of allotments in this country to three million [in fact, something never remotely achieved in wartime] we could be certain that six hundred thousand adults and nine million children would be amply supplied with green vegetables during the greater part of the year’.27 He also exhorted homeowners to put at least some of their borders down to vegetables. That evening, he broadcast a shortened version of his speech on the wireless. A month later, on 6 October, an allotment church service held at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square was also broadcast. Mr Middleton, the radio gardener, read the lesson.

  The following September, Robert Hudson spoke again at the Mansion House, where he exulted in the fa
ct that more new allotments had been marked out than he had asked for in 1940 – some 600,000 in total. He praised the parks superintendents for all their work, but hinted that some local councils were still not doing all they could to take over vacant land for allotments in their districts, singling out Leeds as a shining example of what could be achieved. He encouraged employers to find vacant land for their employees or to lease it to councils for allotments. He was careful to praise broadcasters and journalists, as well as the National Allotments Society and the RHS for their support. And he finished off with an exhortation to ‘crop wisely’ so that there were enough vegetables, stored or green, to eat in wintertime. That evening he broadcast on the wireless: ‘we can’t afford to rest on our spades . . . I want you to look on yourself and your garden as a production unit on active service.’28

  Crucial to what success the educational campaign enjoyed were the horticultural committees, consisting of professional gardeners, parks superintendents and keen amateurs, in every town and some villages, who gave advice to individuals or provided speakers for public lectures and practical demonstrations. The Ministry of Agriculture supplied lantern slides to speakers, without charge. The Royal Horticultural Society drew up a nationwide list of experienced lecturers who would talk to groups for free, especially in the countryside, and also lent out slides. ‘Brains Trust’ panels were put together to provide education and entertainment on similar lines to the modern Gardeners’ Question Time, with the wireless presenter F. H. Grisewood in strong demand as a chairman. Energetic parks superintendents laid out model allotments, following Ministry leaflet guidelines, in parks and open spaces, and staged public lectures and demonstrations in the evenings and at weekends.

  Public show plots were also created in botanic gardens, the best remembered one being that laid out according to the Ministry’s ‘Food from the Garden’ bulletin in front of Kew Palace at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Here the gardeners instructed visitors on basic cultivation techniques. The most photogenic demonstration plots were dug in front of the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, as well as on the Park Lane side of Hyde Park. London Zoo also laid out two model allotments on the Fellows’ Lawn, presided over by a professional gardener called William Strang. Strang, according to The Times, had ‘a great gift of explanation and illustration, much appreciated by those who inquire how best to dig for victory: when asked why he had never written a book about gardening, he replied that he was not much of a scribe and that writing with a spade was more effective than writing with a pen. Certainly his gardens at the Zoo are worth reading.’29

  A survey of the Dig for Victory campaign during 1941 convinced the Publicity Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture that one of the best ways of spurring public interest in a town was to hold a Dig for Victory week or ‘drive’. Dorothy Hinchcliffe, an inspector with the Ministry of Agriculture when war broke out, found herself deeply involved in the campaign in Westmorland and north Lancashire.30 With the help of the local town council and parks superintendent, she organised these events throughout her area, putting up displays and stalls in the town hall and arranging for gardening experts to be on hand, as well as people experienced in the care of pigs, poultry and rabbits. There was usually a produce show, and prizes for the best exhibits. The Ministry headquarters provided her with publicity material and a panel of speakers, and sometimes she would lure Freddie Grisewood (who must have had a very busy war), Joseph McLeod, Donald McCullough or other national figures to talk at an evening meeting.

  By May 1942, nearly a million people had attended the exhibitions and demonstrations connected with these ‘drives’ around the country. After one was held in Yorkshire, Sheffield council received over 500 applications for allotments and Leeds council 400. ‘The efforts made during the past three months represent the most vigorous attempt yet to arouse gardening interest, and to disseminate gardening lore among the residents of urban districts,’ according to The Gardeners’ Chronicle.31 All in all, there was no shortage of expert help, if the new gardeners were prepared to ask for it.

  The efforts of experts were not without effect. Newspapers often told heartwarming stories of how enterprising individuals had taken over factory surrounds, village greens, derelict gardens or bomb sites in places where council-owned allotments were not available. For example, it was reported that workers at Wolseley Motors in Birmingham reclaimed the car factory’s scrap heap for an allotment and made cold frames from old windscreens. Only camping sites and sports recreation fields were likely to remain inviolate, since there was a strong feeling that open-air sport remained important for the nation’s health. However, even these were in places made over to allotments, much to the displeasure of the National Playing Fields Association, who maintained that it was economically unsound to break up ground prepared so carefully for sport in this way.

  The Gardeners’ Chronicle ran a column each week of allotment news, and as the newspaper was very dependent on parks superintendents and allotment association secretaries for information, these items were usually upbeat. The newspaper enumerated in commendable, if rather mind-numbing, detail the success of particular local authorities in increasing the number of wartime and permanent allotments in their district – in the spring of 1941, 9,000 in Sheffield, 6,000 in the London parks, 2,000 in Kettering and so on.

  They were also keen on estimating the value of the food produced on these allotments. According to The Gardeners’ Chronicle, in December 1944 the average annual value of produce was, apparently, £17,250,000.32 This cannot possibly have been accurately calculated, but it must have impressed their readers no end.

  Some boroughs were definitely more active and enthusiastic than others. For example, Tottenham in north London had almost 3,000 allotments in 150 acres, as well as a very successful pig club set up by the council dustmen. Another proactive suburban area was Yiewsley and West Drayton, a recently industrialised part of west Middlesex, with a population of 17,000. Every second household rented an allotment, with 2,200 plots in all. Indeed, the Yiewsley allotments featured in a Dig for Victory film made by the Ministry of Information. As W. G. Evans, a horticultural expert from the district, reported in a talk given on the Home Service in early June 1942: ‘Our school children carried out the first campaign and made a great success of it: there were 380 applications for plots. This was the start of our snowball.’33 He went on to recount how professional gardeners in the local area had formed an advisory committee, and emphasised that the ‘press, libraries, gardening shows and films, Brains Trust meetings, free gardening leaflets, advisory bureaux, and house-to-house canvass are valuable contributions in our plan of campaign. We get a great deal of encouragement for our work, if only to see butchers, bakers, wardens, policemen, shopkeepers, and soldiers, sailors and airmen on leave . . . all working on the same piece of land.’34

  Like many others, Mr Evans liked to boast of how much was grown. The National Fire Service Social Committee was cultivating about four acres of ground, including crops in greenhouses, and had provided 26,200 meals in 1941. There was much communal gardening, with Women’s Institutes, boys’ clubs, and Girl Guides gardening together. The town even had a ‘Women’s Allotment Week’, which encouraged more than 200 women to take up plots. ‘One event during the week’s campaign which excited the admiration of everyone was a procession in which men and women shouldered their gardening tools and marched through the main streets of our town.’35 In 1941, ninety-nine people in the district had won the Ministry of Agriculture’s certificate of merit, which had been instituted for allotment gardeners who had been deemed by their local society to be particularly proficient. Taking into account the 4,000 home gardens, which approximated in size to 2,000 ten-pole allotments, Mr Evans believed that the district would be self-sufficient – a source of great pride to the urban horticultural committee, and not something that many other places could boast. So enduringly enthusiastic were the townspeople that they won the Bledisloe Cup for the best performance in the 1943 Dig for Victory
campaign.

  One of the most inspiring of all local Dig for Victory stories was that of the Bethnal Green Bombed Sites Producers’ Association. Bethnal Green in east London was very badly bombed during the Blitz. Yet the locals were not daunted and turned bombed-out buildings into garden plots. Gardening in places where houses had once stood must have taken considerable dedication; not only would there have been thousands of glass shards, but brick dust is not a good medium in which to grow vegetables. At times, the members of this association were forced to sieve soil with pierced dustbin lids to remove the debris. In August 1942, there were 300 adults growing vegetables on thirty bombed sites in the district.

  On 20 September 1941, the Duke of Norfolk visited the allotments, as well as a vegetable show in Bethnal Green, even going into back yards to inspect hens and rabbits. This visit was promoted by Roy Hay, who managed to persuade the BBC to broadcast an item about it that evening:

  Bethnal Green has always been one of my pet places and before any question of a Ministerial visit was raised I had in mind trying to get something over about these people, mainly because I feel that thousands of shirkers in Torquay, Gleneagles and other hideouts might feel a little ashamed of themselves if they could see or realise what the people in Bethnal Green are doing.36

  The Queen also visited the borough, on 17 June 1943. Wherever she went, crowds gathered, and she finished her tour at the combined allotment and model farm, where she saw pigs, rabbits, chickens, geese, a goat and a pony, all housed in buildings made from scrap. The goat ate the Dig for Victory leaflets. She was accompanied on the tour by the chairman of the Bethnal Green Bombed Sites Producers’ Association, Sir Wyndham Deedes, a distinguished retired career soldier and devout Christian, who lived in a house in the borough throughout the war with his nephew, Bill.37 Sir Wyndham was a local councillor, chief air raid warden and vice-chairman of the National Council for Social Services. A few days after the royal visit he wrote to The Times to enlarge on what the inhabitants of Bethnal Green had achieved. On one bombed site, where once had stood houses, shops and a pub, seventeen people now tended allotments. In some places they had to dig down six feet through solid foundations, and fifty tons of hardcore had been carried away by the lorries of the Heavy Rescue Service. Deedes included a lengthy litany of vegetables grown, at a cost of £4, which included creosoting the fence and 37s. 6d a year charged by the Water Board. He finished the letter: