Cirencester Scene Magazine - Establishing Local Connections Country Matters by The Hodge


‘‘After each war there is a little less democracy to save” Brooks Atkinson Once Around the Sun 1951


Next year sees the 75th anniversary since the end of World War 2 – the fight against Hitler and fascism. Although most of the heroics were on the many battlefields, the government quickly realised that with imports accounting for 70% of food consumed in the UK and U-boats attacking merchant ship- ping, they had to introduce the campaign for ‘Dig for Victory’ to encourage greater self-sufficiency. This covered not only gardens and allotments but farms as well.


To implement this last, a system was set up of ‘War Agricultural Committees’ for each and every county in the land. These were appointed groups – quan- gos as we now call them - with no pre- tence at democracy and whilst many worked efficiently, some were riven with the power bestowed upon them and took revenge on neighbours and those with whom they had differences. The War Ag Committee – as they became known - had total authority over farming practice and could dictate which crops must be sown where; which copses should be felled to increase available land; which meadows must be ploughed to grow cereals and which animals must be slaughtered to be replaced by more productive types. There was no appeal system – their diktats were law. They also had control over the distribution of fertilizers, foodstuffs and petrol to the farm- ing community.


This was at a time when, after the depression of the early 1930s, much land was under grass as permanent pasture and many farmers did not have the machinery or manpower to change back to productive crop growing. A leading mem- ber of the War Ag Committee covering the Cotswolds told me that the area grew rabbits and gorse bushes when inspected in 1939 but by the end of the war, almost all the Cotswolds had been brought back into effective productivity. My own father was on the War Ag in Leicestershire throughout the


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war as he was in a ‘reserved occupation’ as a farmer and did not serve in the forces.


The abuses of power were very sad. One farmer in Warwick- shire was ordered to drain and plough an old pasture that was always boggy and had never grown a crop other than grass. The cost of drainage was £2000 – a substantial sum in 1940 when a cottage cost a few hundred – and he could not comply with the order. The result? Under Defence Regulation 62, the War Ag could issue a ‘writ of bad husband- ry’ resulting in the farmer being evicted without compensation. In some instanc- es, friends or relations of the War Ag Committee member then took over the tenancy of the farm.


Some did not go quietly. In Hampshire, a Mr Walden barricaded himself in his farmhouse with a shotgun when the bailiffs came to evict him. He held out for a couple of hours before being shot dead by the police.


All this took place with the full knowl- edge and connivance of the govern- ment. Every dispossession had to be reported to the Ministry of Agriculture.


Of course, it will be argued that the big picture is the only important one and


Britain got through the war and the population were fed al- though with rationing and much hardship (although many nutritionists insist that people were better fed in the 1940s than today).


But there are ways and means of doing things and this was unfair and open to corruption. A more detailed account ap- peared in the book, Heartbreak Farm, by Frances Mountford published by Sutton Publishing in 1997. Her father was one of those farmers evicted by the War Ag and if you ever come across a copy, I strongly suggest you read it to understand the pain and heartbreak suffered and how things should be managed better in future.


The Hodge


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