Mrs Van Praet, the land girl, was taught how to mix potting soil from leaf mould, which she would collect in great sackloads from the nearby woods. She would add to this a bucketful of lime gravel taken from the derelict tennis court at the hall and stir them both together with garden soil and a little bit of sand. ‘Thus we produced a wonderful, loamy mixture. It certainly worked well and our tomatoes were magnificent in both colour and flavour. This was an indoor job which I enjoyed as it kept us out of the wind and rain.’
Miss Hess, the agricultural adviser to the WI, was keen on compost heaps. She urged members to throw anything from the garden or kitchen onto the heaps, proposing two or three heaps about five feet square and four feet high for a modest-sized garden. There was even a lecturer doing the rounds in the early years of the war who spoke about composting. A member in Cirencester was so inspired by a description on the radio about how to construct a proper compost heap she was said to have constructed a ‘lordly pile which is one of the sights of the village’.12
Vegetables and fruit were one aspect of country food production but the other was animals. WI members were encouraged to keep poultry, pigs, goats and rabbits for their meat and fur. Chickens, ducks and turkeys were relatively easy to manage, even in a small garden, and many people kept hens for eggs and later, for the pot, though a hen at the end of her laying days is fit only for a well-cooked stew. Ruth Toosey kept hens. Caroline remembered: ‘We always had plenty of eggs though I do remember my mother making cakes with dried eggs, which were dry as a result. Meat was scarce during the war but the real horror was the soup that my mother made using a sheep’s head. It had bits of meat and vegetables floating about it in and I remember it tasted disgusting. There used to be a race to see who could eat it up fastest and reveal the flower pattern on the bottom of the bowls.’
Nella Last, another prolific wartime diarist for Mass Observation, and member of her local WI in Barrow-in-Furness, kept chickens in her little back garden. She often referred to them in the diary, and sometimes had concerns. In September 1941 she wrote: ‘I felt a bit worried over one of my chickens: it has “gone back” for some reason. I’ve got some chicken pills and gave it one today. Such a kind little hen, she took it quite well. I hope it does her good, for I’d hate to lose her now. The others all look well: they are thriving and eat a lot.’13 Edith Jones wrote a great deal about her chickens in her diaries. Hatching chicks was always a delight for her and she would have at least three sittings a year. She also bought new pullets for laying and had a series of sheds around the garden and orchard which hens progressed to at various stages of their development. Some weeks she would take a gross of eggs to the market, which she would sell at 1s 6d a dozen, giving her 18s (£38.40 today).
Leigh WI in Lancashire encouraged their members to keep poultry and were pleased to report in 1940 that two members had started from scratch and others had increased their stock. ‘The following increases were reported: 24 pullets, 11 cockerels, 12 day-old chicks, 12 ducks and 7 geese.’ The total number of fowl in the village was not given but the minutes’ secretary reported that 2,283 eggs had been preserved that season. Hookwood WI in East Sussex kept a meticulous log of all their members’ produce and livestock activities. It was kept by Mrs Daisy Jackson and was subtitled ‘Drive for more food production’. Mrs Jackson reported on one member’s poultry: ‘Mrs H Brown keeps chickens, ducks and bantams which have all done splendidly in egg laying. From January 1 to October 31 from 18 hens – 1429 eggs, from 5 ducks – 465 eggs and from 3 bantams – 91 eggs. The bantams didn’t start till March and left off in September. The ducks left off at the end of September but the chickens are still going strong.’14 Lady Denman had always been keen on poultry keeping, as was the Minister of Agriculture, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith. He told his audience in a BBC broadcast:
The hen is an excellent medium for the production of food, not only does she spend her life in providing us with excellent food – an egg is a meal in itself – but at the other end of her period of economic production she provides us with a well covered carcass of meat. When we realise that to maintain this production we can feed her on all sorts of household waste without much expenditure for other foods, the importance of the humble fowl in this war is clearly demonstrated.15
As the larger animals were a greater commitment the WI proposed setting up village pig clubs. These were started in 1940 and were initially not a success, with just eight established by the summer, but by the following July the WI was able to report that after just one year of campaigning over 1,000 pig clubs had been formed, and the 1,000th was for members of the royal household at Windsor Castle. The great appeal of the pig clubs was that members could cure bacon and hams from their own pigs in spite of rationing as well as selling them to the government for a profit.
A pig club was set up in the village of Barham in Kent in 1941 and celebrated success two years later with sales of twenty-seven pigs to the Ministry of Food and four killed for the village in December and a further two the following February. With the profits from the sale of those pigs the club purchased a further twenty-one piglets. The WI minute book records: ‘14 of those have been sold to the Ministry of Food bringing in £124 [£4,200]. There are now 7 pigs left. It is proposed to kill two of these for Christmas and send the others to market. Nearly all the pigs sold have reached top prices.’16
Classes were offered on pig-rearing and meat preparation in an article entitled ‘Pig into Pork’. The advice ranged from curing a whole pig in a large wooden trough to making sausages and black pudding to preparing brawn from half a pig’s head.
Every bit of the pig should be made use of and here is an old country way of using up scraps and oddments that used to be counted a special dish. Wash and dry the pig’s liver and sweetbread, and mince them together with some fat and lean bits of pork, beating the last named first of all with a rolling pin to make them tender. Season with pepper, salt, a little grated nutmeg and a very little finely shredded onion. Add a spoonful or two of stock, just enough to bind the ingredients. Make the mixture into a thick roll, cover it with the leaf – that is the inner fat of the pig – and bake it in the oven.
It is clear that the wartime country housewife was more than used to butchering and dealing with animals.
The WI pointed out that the pig club movement also brought benefits to agriculture. ‘Since its 25,000 members do not breed pigs but only fatten them, their demands have had a steadying effect at a difficult time upon the market for weaners.’17 They were also keen to point out that two pigs kept at the bottom of a 10-rod plot would produce 500 kilograms of manure a year, which would then go to dressing the plot at the rate of 80 tons per acre. That is a satisfactory covering sufficient to make Miss Hess and Mr Middleton smile. By 1943 there were some 4,000 pig clubs throughout the country with over 100,000 people involved. Many villages had large metal dustbins labelled ‘Pig Food’ where local people could contribute household waste and suitable vegetable peelings to the communal pig bin. Ronnie Spatch remembered being asked by his mother to help her fix the bin to the tree in the centre of the village: ‘Mother was very institute minded and she liked to take on responsibility for things that would benefit everyone in the community, so we were involved in the Pig Club. We got an old dustbin, metal of course, with a lid and I pushed it round the village in a wheel barrow collecting swill and leftovers. It smelled pretty ripe by the end of a summer’s day, I can tell you.’
Lord Woolton knew that one of the ways of keeping the WI on side was to make sure that from time to time their work was recognised officially. One of the most memorable visits was made by Mrs Roosevelt, accompanied by Mrs Churchill, to Barham WI. The build-up for the visit had started nearly a week earlier and although it was meant to be shrouded in the utmost secrecy with the identity of the celebrity visitor withheld, one member asked innocently: ‘Oughtn’t we to begin learning the Star Spangled Banner?’18 Barham was chosen because it was close to the Canterbury–Dover Road and Mrs Roosev
elt was on her way from Canterbury to Dover. She had told her hostess, Mrs Churchill, that she was keen to see a typical WI with its preservation centre, weekly market stall, communal allotment, rabbits, pig and poultry clubs. Barham also had a flourishing choir and drama club and had been knitting for the services and the prisoner-of-war fund as well as gathering herbs, hips and salvage material.
Mrs Roosevelt and Mrs Churchill and other dignitaries arrived on board a double-headed train of seven LMS coaches. Sixty members of the press from almost every national newspaper were bussed in separately. Among the guests were Colonel Hobby of the WAAC, the Dowager Marchioness of Reading (WVS) and Mrs Lawton Matthews (WRNS). Lady Denman and Miss Erle Drax, the chairman of East Kent FWI, were on hand to welcome the visitors. Although the location of the village was meant to be kept secret one paper gave the name away and the following day, when Canterbury was blitzed, a train at Barham was strafed.
The minutes secretary, who was asked to record the visit, wrote: ‘A film was made, flash light photographs taken, the garments for Merchant Seamen, the market stall, wool collected from the hedges and knitted, the toys and fur garments were admired. The preservation centre was inspected, a rabbit from the rabbit club, a pig from the pig club, two hens from the poultry club were commented on. Mrs Murphy, the WI president, took Mrs Roosevelt round the stalls and Barham WI showed America’s First Lady what it did in wartime.’
She inspected the WI produce on show and was introduced to a pig called Franklin from the village pig club. The visit was reported on the news that evening, with film of Mrs Roosevelt joking with the member holding the pig. The clipped tones of the commentator announce proudly: ‘Rural England shows America’s First Lady how it is doing its bit. At the village hall the bazaar displays with evident pride the products of an industrious community. It meant a great deal to the residents of Barham and to the President’s wife also. Nice people.’ A week later Mrs Roosevelt sent Lady Denman a telegram to say: ‘Before I return home may I again thank the NFWI for the extraordinarily interesting demonstration of their work arranged at Barham. I congratulate you on the fine contribution they are making to their country’s war effort and wish them all possible success.’ Mrs Roosevelt had endeared herself to everyone by announcing ‘I felt very much at home at Barham.’
Such events were great morale boosters and Lord Woolton paid several visits to markets, canning centres and produce events and was always careful to write to thank the WI for their efforts in helping with the nation’s larder, as he called it. Lady Denman was equally aware of the value of this form of acknowledgement of their work and she made sure that his letters were published in Home & Country.
One of the less-publicised contributions the WI made to production was in the collection and drying of fruit and leaves, both for food and for medicinal purposes. The foxglove, or Digitalis purpurea, had long been known to have useful medicinal properties. In 1775 Dr William Withering discovered that an effective medicine for treating heart conditions could be made from drying leaves picked just before the plant flowered and crushing them into a powder. He also discovered that if the patient was given too much it was poisonous. It was not until a hundred years later that the active properties of digitalis were discovered and the benefits, as well as the risks, of this medicinal plant could be fully exploited. During the Second World War there was a shortage of certain drugs which had formerly been imported into the UK and this shortfall had to be made up by collecting whatever medicinal herbs there were in the country. The British pharmaceutical industry processed huge amounts of foxglove leaves, many of them gathered in collection parties organised by the Women’s Institutes.
One of the difficulties of exploiting the foxglove is the need to pick, carry and store the leaves without bruising or damaging them. The drying process is also not straightforward and required the advice of experts. In Oxfordshire the WI was fortunate in having Dr W. O. James from the Department of Botany at the university as their adviser.
Dr James was a plant physiologist who had a reputation for imaginatively prepared lectures that attracted many students. His wife, a fellow botanist, had written to the county secretary in early 1941 explaining how the previous summer her husband had made a survey of herbs needed for medicinal purposes, which were to be found in the Chilterns, particularly around Henley, Nettlebed and Peppard, and in large enough quantities to be worth collecting commercially. ‘He had found the following: Belladonna, Digitalis, Datura and Hyoscyamus, and had had them collected and dried under his supervision. He was willing to extend the scheme this year in collaboration with the OFWI and suggest that members might collect herbs on specified dates and send them to depots from which he would collect them and superintend drying.’19 Dr James was exploring the home cultivation of some of these medicinal plants and the success of his efforts led to national recognition of the Oxford Medicinal Plants Scheme.20 When dried, the herbs could be sold, and after deducting costs of transport, drying etc. the profit would be available for the institute collecting, but ‘Dr James asks us to emphasise that it will be very small. People must not expect to make any real money out of it, but to regard it as a piece of national service, by which they can help to supply life saving drugs which would not otherwise be available.’21
During the spring of 1941, members of Oxfordshire WIs and other willing volunteers collected foxgloves and belladonna which were dried at Islip by Dr and Mrs James at their home. This yielded 350,000 doses of digitalis. To put this into perspective I consulted Dr Nigel Stanley who explained that ‘Digitalis was given as a single daily dose for long term treatment of heart failure and so 350,000 doses would have provided one year of continuing treatment for 1000 patients.’ This was therefore not an inconsiderable contribution from just one county but more was needed. In April Mrs James wrote again to the county secretary, this time asking her to encourage members to grow foxgloves on any piece of spare land, so great was the demand for digitalis. The collection and drying of these medicinal herbs had proved so successful that they encouraged members to broaden their harvesting and bring in dandelion roots, nettles, chestnuts and rosehips. In 1942 the board of the Medicinal Plants Scheme wrote to thank the institutes for their work in collecting plants and in particular to those institutes who had taken no payment for the leaves they had collected. A film made about the medicinal use of foxgloves was sent around institutes so that they could see the value of the work they had undertaken.
Towards the end of the war the demand for rosehips grew. The WI and other voluntary organisations were asked to collect 500 tons. The reason they were so highly valued was that they contain a high concentration of vitamin C, something that was only established relatively late on in the war. While oranges and lemons were plentiful before the war there was no need to focus on other sources of vitamin C but once they became scarce another source was needed. They discovered that a pound of good-quality rosehips contained as much vitamin C as a dozen large oranges, as well as containing other valuable vitamins as well.
Rosehips could not be eaten in their raw state so they had to be collected and sent to manufacturers who could convert them into syrup, which was then sold through pharmacists for children and people in hospital. The advantage of rosehip syrup over orange syrup was that it was not so strongly acid, which made it an easier and more palatable drink for patients. In 1945 Miss Hess wrote that: ‘During the past four years members of WIs all over the country have gathered hundreds of pounds of rosehips, so that it is natural that the Association should now appeal to them to assist in continuing production this summer at the rate of five hundred tons of hips a year. The demand is likely greatly to exceed the supply for children here and on the continent. Recently 1000 gallons of the syrup were flown to France for Polish children living in a war camp under appalling conditions, where they had been assembled by the Germans to harvest root crops.’22
Miss Hess suggested that pickers should take gloves, a large basket and a crook-handled stick, adding that if i
t were the blackberry season she would advise taking a second basket for picking those as well. Elsie Bainbridge used to collect rosehips in Cumbria after school. The price of rosehips was 3d a pound to the pickers, she remembered, but they did not use baskets.
We put them in paper bags and then took them to the chemist in Penrith who would then send them on to the manufacturers. I also used to get a penny each for rat tails. Rats were a real nuisance around the village, on the farm of course when they nested in the hay and we were paid as children to trap as many as we could. You didn’t need to take the whole rat in, just the tails. A councillor in the village would collect them and count out the cash. It was one of the many ways we got a little bit of pocket money in those days.
Elsie had to work on the farm too. She did not need gloves for picking rosehips but she certainly did for harvesting turnips. ‘It was hard in the winter. We used to get chilblains picking them even though we had nice woollen gloves. The turnips were mainly for the sheep but we also grew potatoes, carrots and cabbages for ourselves.’ Elsie’s mother was in Morland and Newby WI in Cumbria during the war and she remembered her mother going to the meetings.
A lot of people on farms were self-sufficient but it meant that women didn’t have a lot of reason to get out. Going to the WI was an opportunity for farmer’s wives to get out and be together. They were big on their weekly competitions and there were even county competitions which kept going during the war. My mother was very resourceful. When we didn’t have sugar she would use Golden Syrup and I remember the biscuits she used to make with syrup in those days.
Mary Hodgson also came from Cumbria. Her parents had a farm in Howtown on the banks of Ullswater. ‘My parents lived on a mixed farm and we had land girls. Women would take over men’s jobs and keep things going. Everybody worked together, nobody was on their own. There were no selfish ways in those days. We grew carrots, turnips and potatoes for the servicemen who were stationed locally. We didn’t grow fruit but we used to get plenty in exchange for chickens and butter. And then I used to go to Penrith and sell chicken and butter at the market on Tuesdays.’ Mary was still at school at the beginning of the war. She used to walk two and a half miles to Pooley Bridge. In the winter, when it snowed, she could not leave the farm so had to miss school.
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