A Victory 1940-46

Molly Agras

We were living in the small, country market town of Abergavenny in South Wales in the lovely green Usk Valley. In September 1939 the second world war began and I was 6years old. The Government realized that imports of food would largely stop, hence food began in January 1940 and everyone was issued a ration book full of coupons. Almost inconceivable today, one persons ration for a week was 1 fresh egg, 4ozs margarine and bacon. 2ozs of butter and tea, 10oz of cheese, 8oz of sugar. Meat was allocated by price at about 4 oz a week. Offal such as heart livers and brains were not rationed and were cheaper with articles advising as to how to make them tasty! Soon candies were rationed as well, and as the war went on so were basic clothes.

To make up the shortfall in imported foods, and to some extent calories, the government encouraged everyone to “Victory ” as a way to provide their own fruits and vegetables. A series of posters were developed to promulgate the program one of which is shown below.

The “Dig for Victory Campaign” encouraged self sufficiency. The campaign was so successful that 1.4.million victory gardens, or allotments as they were also called, were quickly established.

We had a large garden around our home, with a huge, very productive apple tree, and plenty of space to start a Victory garden. As a family, working together, we saw that we could feed ourselves with vegetables and fruit from our own work on our own land! It became a family project. When my father returned from work he immediately started digging and turning earth before it got too dark. My Mother was in charge of the overall plan including ordering the seeds and she, like many others, decided to border the victory garden with colorful flowers.

As a first step, we all got together to discuss what we needed for a household of three adults, including my grandmother who lived with us, three children and another on the way. A staple of Welsh cooking is the Leek, so to begin with we dug a large trench a foot deep. To accompany the leeks we planted the rest of the garden with potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, swedes and parsnips. These winter vegetables we started first because they take longer to grow. The rows were laid out with a string to keep it all looking very neat. My older brother and sister were there to help with that! Beans grew with great success—climbing large poles strung together Tepee fashion, tied up as they started to grow. Brussel Sprouts were also a necessity but because they took a lot of room so they had to be placed in the space allotted to extra potatoes and onions .

Next we planted the smaller vegetables for the salads, lots of spinach. lettuce and tomatoes.The tomatoes were always a bit of a problem and there wasn't much sun in Wales but an awful lot of rain. Finally, we added some herbs including mint, parsley and chives, I was in charge of that,weeding and cutting. To this day I love to tend and use these from my garden.

Our garden was successful and we grew so much that we built some shelves at the back of the garage to store the extra root vegetables for the winter!

There was lots of help and information from the government in the form of pamphlets on what and when to plant, including recipes for fatless cakes, scones and biscuits. We were encouraged to use carrots to replace sugar in apple tarts and to use as many vegetables in cooking as possible. School lunches were supplemented with black current juice, vitamins and milk ,to prevent Scurvy as we no longer were able to purchase Citrus fruit as they had to be imported!

We were lucky to live in this beautiful valley surrounded by small and large farms with plenty of space for allotments. Many farms were able to supplement our meager meat ration with rabbits and chickens.

Everyone was encouraged to plant as much land as they could cope with. In addition to the development of Victory Gardens in private gardens, allotments were laid out in parks and . Parks, empty lots and even city roofs were used for allotments and for many people it was their first chance at planting and growing their own vegetables. These allotments quickly became populated with little makeshift sheds to hold the needed tools and a small stove to make tea. These gardens facilitated social interaction. It was a time when people got to know each other and helped each other by sharing expertise or swapping one kind of vegetable for another with neighbors. The results were overwhelming, given the incentive of adding to the stringent food rationing. People worked hard, met and interacted more with their neighbors forming a community bond.The government encouraged people to bottle and preserve their own vegetables and encouraged simple home cooking.

It is interesting to speculate as to how many people given this introduction to working the earth, watching things grow and harvesting produce continued their efforts into peacetime and the years thereafter, perhaps even handing down the skills and appreciation to their children. A stream of influence in the history of the garden. Although many allotments and gardens were given up at the end of the war rationing on some items continued to 1954. Some allotments continued in use past the immediate post-war years and their remnants could still be seen 50-years later. Every year I still replenish my small and much used herb garden and now, in California, can really grow tomatoes!

Although wartime was an extremely hard and worrisome time the United Kingdom was never as healthy as they were at the end of it. That was a form of VICTORY too.

A brief history of the Victory Garden

The Victory Garden, first called the War Garden, began in World War 1 in both the UK and the USA, although it was less prominent in the United States because of the late entry to the War. In 1914 the UK imported about 50% of its food. Once the war began, the use of shipping for war materials rather than food limited these imports. As important was the use of the new-fangled submarine. The German Navy had envisioned the submarine as a reconnaissance vessel but it quickly became apparent that the submarine could sink Merchant ships. Even though the Germans had relatively few U-Boats by blockading British ports they quickly added to the shortfall in food imports. Hence in the UK there was a real need for the Victory Garden.

After the end of the WWI, growing vegetables rapidly gave way to the and by 1939 70% of Britain's food supply was imported. Months before WW2 it became evident that the enhanced German submarine now available in large numbers could effectively blockade British ports and threaten merchant shipping world-wide adding to the threat of starvation. Starvation of the British public was one of the German war aims. Hence, in the UK plans were made to re- establish the Victory Garden supported by information about vegetable growing both in lecture and pamphlet form. To limit food wastage, recipes to take advantage of the many vegetables and methods to bottle fruits and vegetables were made widely available. Once the war began and the survival of the nation was at stake, the British public responded with enthusiasm and hard work. The Victory Garden became one of the ways in which people from all levels men, women and children could contribute forming a new and vigorous national identity. Perhaps more remarkable was the response in the U.S where even more Victory Gardens flourished. In America the motivation was to save the gasoline and labor involved in transportation.

After the end of the war interest in the Victory Garden again waned and was largely forgotten, but in the last few years the problem of obesity accompanied by diabetes and cardiovascular disease fostered by the intake of unhealthy foods has raised interest in vegetable gardening. Emblematic of this was 's garden at the White House to enhance the goal of healthy eating beginning in childhood. A second influence is the problem that many communities have in accessing healthy foods, in particular fruits and fresh vegetables because there are no stores selling adequate amounts and variety of fruits and vegetables in such neighbourhoods. Gardens placed in these neighbourhoods have been suggested as a partial solution to this problem. A third influence is the increase in the numbers of farmers markets, enhancing small scale farming and the consumption of local foods. Perhaps a national campaign, Victory versus Obesity would now be timely.

Bibliography

Gowdy-Wygant, C., Cultivating Victory: The Women's Land Army and the Victory Garden Movement. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh PA, 2013. An excellent history of the Women's Land Army and the Victory Garden from on.

Thompson, B., Wilson, J., Wirth, T. The Victory Garden: The Essential Companion. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1995. From the Victory Garden the longest running garden series in the U.S.

Osborne, E. W. Naval Warfare. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Free University of Berlin, 2014. (online virtual reference work). An excellent account of Naval Warfare in WWI.