This Week On Movie Monday
Wartime Farm is an eight part documentary program originally aired on BBC2 in 2012. Historian Ruth Goodman along with archeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn take over a farm in Hampshire, England. The goal is to run the farm as it would have been during the second world war.
It’s 1942 and the team face running the farm under increasing food and fuel shortages. The Ministry of Food has demanded an extra 840,000 tonnes of wheat be produced and, to do their part, Alex and Peter lease specialist equipment from the wartime government to turn every last scrap of ground into arable land. They also construct a ‘Horse Gin’ to slice swede, and convert a 1930s petrol-powered ambulance to run on gas from an onboard coal furnace. This leads Alex on to discover where Britain’s wartime coal supplies came from, as he experiences life down the mines as a Bevin boy.
Ruth, meanwhile, joins the Women’s Timber Corps with her daughter. Together they fell, sned and measure up a tree for the war effort. They also meet a veteran ‘Lumber Jill’ from the 1940s, who expressed her enjoyment of the camaraderie and work ethic of the Corps, despite the hard work.
Ruth, meanwhile, joins the Women’s Timber Corps with her daughter. Together they fell, sned and measure up a tree for the war effort. They also meet a veteran ‘Lumber Jill’ from the 1940s, who expressed her enjoyment of the camaraderie and work ethic of the Corps, despite the hard work.
Directed by Stuart Elliott and Naomi Benson
Produced byDavid Upshal
These films are presented as an exception to the copyright act as fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire. See bill c-42 article 29.