Christmas during World War 2 as it was on Britain's War Time Farms

[Utar]

This film focuses on Christmas time during WW2. While so many films about WW2 focus on the battles, this film focuses on the everyday person where even paper was rationed.

It is totally amazing how people came together in a time of crisis during WW2. This hour long film tells of how the farms in Britain helped to feed the people living in London and other besieged City's of England. How the women played a part in helping orphaned children during WW2. As it is said in the film many of the youngest children never had a Christmas without war.

How Winston Churchill ordered the making of beer to help with the spirits of the people. They even supplied beer for the troops in the war.

 

[Essjay]

Unfortunately I am unable to watch the video




My mother was 14 when the war started and she told me a lot about life during the war. I was born 8 years after the war ended and I had a ration book!

 

[Guyb93]

My nan didn’t see a banana till she was 13 due to rations and still drinks tea with no milk and sugar as where my grandad was a farmers son and rations didn’t really effect him as such with live stock apparently his mom used to make cakes for the town as they were the only ones with eggs

 

[Utar]

@essjay so sorry you can't watch the film, I don't know why it want allow play for copy right issues. It is a really good film and I enjoyed watching it.
I too was born eight years after the war ended, and I grew up hearing about the war from my parents and Uncles. My Mom's two oldest brothers were in the navy during the war. I guess that is why I am a WW2 buff and watch a lot of WW2 films about the history of the war.

Mom told me here in the States they had to ration and everyone worked toward the war effort. During the height of the war effort factories where turning out an army tank every thirty minutes off the assembly lines. That was the same for all types of ships, planes and everything needed to fight the war. All everyone wanted to do was get the war over with so all the boys could come back home.

Two turning points of the war where "The Normandy Landings called D-Day" and "Midway". If England had fallen then D-Day may not have ever happened. So it was very important that England remained a free nation, and the British people showed a courage and determination to remain free that Hitler could not put down, and he tried really tried hard to do so. Even the mighty Luftwaffe was out classed and out fought by the British planes like the Spitfires and Hurricanes. Even when they where outnumbered three to one or more.

 

[Essjay]

In the UK the war started in 1939. My father was in the air force - he volunteered before he was called up as then he could choose which branch of the armed forces. He got seasick so he didn't want to go in the the navy and he considered the army to be cannon fodder, so he wanted the air force. He ended up as a navigator on bombers.
He never talked much about his life in the air force, though I now have his navigator's log book which gives details of the training flights and missions he flew. For my last birthday, my younger son gave me a book about the plane he flew on, it related several missions my father flew on, and life at the base where he was stationed.

My mother had to do war work as soon as she turned 18. After school she trained as a shorthand typist while working for a local company. One of the owners of the company had been a colonel in the army so he was appointed head of the local Home Guard branch and my mother became Home Guard secretary until the war ended.

The Home Guard was made up of men too young or too old to be called up, and their function was to fight on home soil if the UK was invaded. One of my grandfathers was in the Home Guard, he was one of only a few hundred men to be killed while on active service. My other grandfather was an air raid warden, though the towns where my parents lived were not bombed during the war. But there was always the fear as Liverpool (which was heavily bombed) was not far away and enemy bombers would drop the last of their bombs anywhere before returning home.

Our younger son lived in Coventry for several years and one of the most poignant places we visited was the remains of the cathedral which had been destroyed by incendiary bombs. There are just the walls now standing and there was a feeling of total peace inside them.

 

[Utar]

Thank you for telling me all this, very interesting reading and hearing of the war from a personal point of view. America was divided at the time but isolationist were pushing hard to stay out of another European War. This left England standing alone and fighting to hold back Hitler, with no one knowing in those years how long the England could hold out, that is until Pearl Harbor. Everything changed after that.