Our Land at War: A Portrait of Rural Britain 1939-45

On the outbreak of war, the countryside was invaded by service personnel and evacuee children by the thousands; land was taken arbitrarily for airfields, training grounds, and firing ranges, and whole communities were evicted. Prisoner-of-war camps brought captured enemy soldiers to close quarters, and as horses gave way to tractors and combines farmers were burdened with aggressive new restrictions on what they could and could not grow. Land Girls and Lumber Jills worked in fields and forests. Food - or the lack of it - was a major preoccupation, and rationing strictly enforced. And although rabbits were poached, apples scrumped, and mushrooms gathered, there was still not enough to eat.