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Wartime Farm

Ruth Goodman

Alex Langlands

Peter Ginn

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Wartime Farm: Episode 1

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Factual: Food & Drink

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Episode 1

BBC Two - Wartime Farm, Episode 1

Reclaiming unused land for farming is the first role on the 'frontline of freedom'.

History programme recreating British farming as it was during WWII, when farmers had to double production. The historian-farmers must reclaim land and prepare for air raids.

Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn face up to the challenges of the biggest revolution ever seen in the history of the British countryside as they turn Manor Farm back to how it was run in the Second World War. When Britain entered the war, two-thirds of all Britain's food was imported - and now it was under threat from a Nazi blockade. To save Britain from starvation, the nation's farmers were tasked with doubling food production in what Churchill called 'the frontline of freedom'. This meant ploughing up 6.5 million acres of unused land - a combined area bigger than the whole of Wales.

In this first episode, the farmers find themselves in a new location, a new time period and with a new team member. There is a new farmhouse to modernise, strict new rules to abide by and air raid precautions to contend with. 

The team begin by reclaiming badlands to grow new crops. Peter works with a blacksmith to design a special 'mole plough' to help drain the waterlogged clay fields. Ruth and Alex get to grips with a troublesome wartime tractor - and must plough through the night to get the wheat crop sown in time.

On top of farmers' Herculean efforts to double food production, their detailed knowledge of the landscape also made them ideal recruits for one of the war's most secret organisations - the 'Auxiliary Units', a British resistance force trained to use guerrilla tactics against German invasion.

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Turning back the clock to run Hampshire's Manor Farm exactly as it was during WWII.

Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn turn back the clock to run Manor Farm in Hampshire exactly as it would have been during World War II

Simulcast of network BBC One in high definition. From 03/11/2010

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