I absolutely love that whenever you're missing a photo of someone, you add a portrait of yourself with a little modifier! The brown wig was delightful!
Germany and Italy in the forties still had many small farms and a higher farming/ peasant population. It is therefore not surprising that, language barriers aside, POWs became effective workers on British farms. Many of them came from farming backgrounds. POWs were kept working on British farms a full 2 years after the war.
Hi from the middle of London! I've been enjoying the videos, and I really appreciate all the effort that clearly goes into researching and presenting all this material. Seems like now is a pretty good time for us all to be putting a bit more thought into where our food comes from and how the countryside operates.
Such an interesting channel, I found it a few days ago and have watched almost all of the content. I am from Wisconsin in the US, which has a fairly large rural population and farming industry. I didn't grow up farming, but rather in the north-woods where my family ran a campground. Some interesting cultural parallels but with distinct differences to your videos.
as a 16 year old herdsman/farm worker my fathers main complaint about landgirls was that they got paid more than him and as an experienced hand was getting more work.He spoke highly of the German POWs, he got on the Italians but they had to be persuaded to work,i'm sure this was a generalization .
Absolutely brilliant video. You deserve way more subscription s. The old footage and recordings show me what it was like when my father and his kin were growing up during the war in Bedfordshire. Thank you.
Thank you for posting another fascinating & informative video - please keep up the good work! Look forward to learning more about the country from you. I'm the 4th generation of my family to live mostly in the city, but love the countryside. My parents & grandparents were evacuated from the cities during the second world war, but went to stay with their relatives who lived in rural areas, not with strangers. When I was a child my parents' house was at the very outermost margins of a town & our windows looked out across arable fields.Some of my own earliest memories in life are of watching the farm tractor purposefully chugging to & fro across those fields, ploughing & harvesting. Wherever I travel in the world, I find myself scrutinising the landscape, trying to work out what crops are grown, how farmers make their living & how the countryside economy functions!
Interesting video - thanks Oli. A few points - firstly, it wasn’t always the case that evacuees didn’t get on or mix with country people. My mother, a farmer’s daughter who went on to study dairying at Reading and marry a farmer (my late father) made good friends of two evacuees and kept in touch with both until they died. As to the town and country divide, I’ve read somewhere that whereas most of the UK population was urban by the third quarter of the 19th century, this did not occur in France or Germany until well into the 20th century. In Germany too there was also a tradition of families keeping on small farms as hobby farms while the main source of income was in industry or the service sector. There is just as much in French culture about the difference between metropolitan people (especially Parisians) and what were often portrayed as insular and backward rural people. As to resentment of town people moving to the country, the picture is blurred by the extensive spread of suburbs in many of the denser-populated parts of the country, including much of south-east and central southern England. One of the major causes of friction is the perception of the countryside as simply an amenity for urban dwellers, with no thought given that there are still people (albeit an ever-decreasing proportion of the population) who make a living there. Just as the prominent calls for inclusiveness ignore many underprivileged people in deprived areas who do not have “protected characteristics”, the rural and farming communities are largely ignored. As a farmer’s son and keen naturalist, it also annoys me that the disturbance and damage to wildlife from recreation is largely ignored by the media.
Well done, a cracking film and well explained. There was a couple of ex Land Girl in our village who met her husband during her placement in our village during WW2. Heard my dad talk of Italian POW's working on local farms when he was a schoolboy.
I grew up in a town and have lived all of my adult live in London (or a London commuter town). I find your videos really interesting. Over the years I've moved from veganism (with a focus on reduced environmental impact) to a more balanced position where I eat a much wider range of foods (trying to eat more agracultural pests such as rabbits). I still do, and will likely continue to, eat a lot of foriegn food that might seem odd to both country and city people but incorperate more local ingrediants to.
Many "alternative" farms will regularly host volunteers, found through websites where so called townies can easily find them and relate to their values. I've done it myself, several times. Regular farms don't seem to quite do that - especially the values bit (other than religious stuff).
Never a truer word spoken. Urban people have strong opinions on country matters no matter how scant their knowledge. They don't give the country people credit for their reasons for continuing their way of life and we end up with stupid laws which are concocted in cities for our countryside.
My late mother (died aged 93 in June 2019) met through place of work in Birmingham Betty Andrews Betty died July 2023. She would have been 100 January 2025 Betty had married Jim Andrews (he served in the Parachute Regiment for almost all of the war and taught boxing in the Army) Of course Betty did not see Jim until he was demobbed Betty through those 5/6 years worked at the Spitfire Factory at Castle Bromwich and then ‘signed on’ for the LAND ARMY She was based around STUDLEY, ALCESTER, and surrounding villages She had a wonderful time. 🏴🏴🇬🇧🇬🇧👍 👍 🙏🙏😃😃
My grandfather used to get POW's from the local camp to do ag work. He said they tried to get the Germans as they were better workers. The Italian POWs used to spend most of their time flirting with the land girls and the milk maids.
Regarding the POW's the hard-core Nazi's and Fascists were kept in more secure facilities. Even in the US most of them (in particular those of the Afrika corps) were known to be uncooperative and bullying towards the other POWs. Eventually they were separated
i moved to a village near Loughborough in 1975 the population has changed and grown greatly with town people who whilst mostly they are friendly enough make complaints about farming and concrete over their own green spaces. Why did they move here? Yes there are fond memories of POW’s who had been here , one Italian even married into the village.
We also moved to a village nr Loughborough, a year after you. My family still live there and one of my brothers lives in Loughborough itself. When I go back there now I'm always sad at just how much of the countryside around there has gone to development. It was a very nice place to grow-up at the time.
Is the use of POWs as labour not a war crime? Did the British government ever get criticism for their use of prisoners' labour or was this seen as normal?
I would say no in this case, especially considering that quite a lot of POWs were actually living with the farmers and weren't under armed guard for quite a large amount of time. Also, I doubt there would have been a large body of criticism especially as people would have seen in the papers what was happening to the cities and large towns in Britain so would have though it was on the road to a fair return.
It's sobering to realize that the understanding gap between rural and city people is far larger than that between the aristocratic colonial and aristocratic English prior to the American revolution. This gap is what leads to objectively hare-brained policy imposed on the countryside by urban elitists, who do not even entertain the objections of the people most impacted by bad policy. Inducting city girls to work on farms probably bought rural England three generations of goodwill that is now dying with the last of the land army. As we see in today's political landscape, appreciation for rural, traditional England is all but dead.
Without the Land Girls Britain would have starved full stop. The state and productivity of British agriculture in general at the outbreak of war in 1939 was shocking with 65% of our food being imported from the Empire and otherwise. The depression of the 30's had land left bare and labour was drifting away into the factories and similar for vastly better pay and rewards. The German UBoat blockade was sinking large numbers of cargo ships bringing supplies into our country and it was a dire situation. I have very much interest in that time period and I have always been involved in farming up in Derbyshire in the Peak District. The history of the Land Girls has fascinated me for years and we owe them one heck of a lot of gratitude for all they did . Believe me, many if not most, had very poor treatment and were initially at least resented and laughed at before they were valued and shown respect and appreciation. The Women's Land Army didn't get the acknowledgement they should have done from the government post war either by a country mile ...
When you gonna cover the diggers? It would be cool to compare the diggers to current movements like Brazilian landless workers(MST) and via campensina, that's more examples of women in the countryside. Anglophobia joke
I absolutely love that whenever you're missing a photo of someone, you add a portrait of yourself with a little modifier! The brown wig was delightful!
Germany and Italy in the forties still had many small farms and a higher farming/ peasant population. It is therefore not surprising that, language barriers aside, POWs became effective workers on British farms. Many of them came from farming backgrounds. POWs were kept working on British farms a full 2 years after the war.
Hi from the middle of London! I've been enjoying the videos, and I really appreciate all the effort that clearly goes into researching and presenting all this material.
Seems like now is a pretty good time for us all to be putting a bit more thought into where our food comes from and how the countryside operates.
Yeah, let's have people who live and work in the country decide how cities operate, and where our money comes from.
its nie to see a youtyber with suc knowledge and eloquence,well done thanks
Such an interesting channel, I found it a few days ago and have watched almost all of the content. I am from Wisconsin in the US, which has a fairly large rural population and farming industry. I didn't grow up farming, but rather in the north-woods where my family ran a campground. Some interesting cultural parallels but with distinct differences to your videos.
Another brilliant video, keep up the good work!
as a 16 year old herdsman/farm worker my fathers main complaint about landgirls was that they got paid more than him and as an experienced hand was getting more work.He spoke highly of the German POWs, he got on the Italians but they had to be persuaded to work,i'm sure this was a generalization .
Absolutely brilliant video. You deserve way more subscription s. The old footage and recordings show me what it was like when my father and his kin were growing up during the war in Bedfordshire. Thank you.
Thank you for posting another fascinating & informative video - please keep up the good work! Look forward to learning more about the country from you. I'm the 4th generation of my family to live mostly in the city, but love the countryside. My parents & grandparents were evacuated from the cities during the second world war, but went to stay with their relatives who lived in rural areas, not with strangers. When I was a child my parents' house was at the very outermost margins of a town & our windows looked out across arable fields.Some of my own earliest memories in life are of watching the farm tractor purposefully chugging to & fro across those fields, ploughing & harvesting. Wherever I travel in the world, I find myself scrutinising the landscape, trying to work out what crops are grown, how farmers make their living & how the countryside economy functions!
Interesting video - thanks Oli.
A few points - firstly, it wasn’t always the case that evacuees didn’t get on or mix with country people. My mother, a farmer’s daughter who went on to study dairying at Reading and marry a farmer (my late father) made good friends of two evacuees and kept in touch with both until they died.
As to the town and country divide, I’ve read somewhere that whereas most of the UK population was urban by the third quarter of the 19th century, this did not occur in France or Germany until well into the 20th century. In Germany too there was also a tradition of families keeping on small farms as hobby farms while the main source of income was in industry or the service sector. There is just as much in French culture about the difference between metropolitan people (especially Parisians) and what were often portrayed as insular and backward rural people.
As to resentment of town people moving to the country, the picture is blurred by the extensive spread of suburbs in many of the denser-populated parts of the country, including much of south-east and central southern England. One of the major causes of friction is the perception of the countryside as simply an amenity for urban dwellers, with no thought given that there are still people (albeit an ever-decreasing proportion of the population) who make a living there. Just as the prominent calls for inclusiveness ignore many underprivileged people in deprived areas who do not have “protected characteristics”, the rural and farming communities are largely ignored. As a farmer’s son and keen naturalist, it also annoys me that the disturbance and damage to wildlife from recreation is largely ignored by the media.
Well done, a cracking film and well explained. There was a couple of ex Land Girl in our village who met her husband during her placement in our village during WW2. Heard my dad talk of Italian POW's working on local farms when he was a schoolboy.
I sold everything on the city and moved to a small farm. Now with home office more and more people will start doing that, living in the city is hell.
The urban/rural divide is escalating in Australia too, to the detriment of food producers 😰
great video as always
Another brilliant video Ollie keep up the good work 👍
I grew up in a town and have lived all of my adult live in London (or a London commuter town). I find your videos really interesting.
Over the years I've moved from veganism (with a focus on reduced environmental impact) to a more balanced position where I eat a much wider range of foods (trying to eat more agracultural pests such as rabbits). I still do, and will likely continue to, eat a lot of foriegn food that might seem odd to both country and city people but incorperate more local ingrediants to.
Rabbits eat their owm feces, don't eat them. Sheep are better.
Many "alternative" farms will regularly host volunteers, found through websites where so called townies can easily find them and relate to their values. I've done it myself, several times. Regular farms don't seem to quite do that - especially the values bit (other than religious stuff).
Great video, well sourced
I'm reminded of the message at the end of "Spring Offensive".
Never a truer word spoken. Urban people have strong opinions on country matters no matter how scant their knowledge. They don't give the country people credit for their reasons for continuing their way of life and we end up with stupid laws which are concocted in cities for our countryside.
Very well said 👍
My late mother (died aged 93 in June 2019) met through place of work in Birmingham Betty Andrews
Betty died July 2023. She would have been 100 January 2025
Betty had married Jim Andrews (he served in the Parachute Regiment for almost all of the war and taught boxing in the Army)
Of course Betty did not see Jim until he was demobbed
Betty through those 5/6 years worked at the Spitfire Factory at Castle Bromwich and then ‘signed on’ for the LAND ARMY
She was based around STUDLEY, ALCESTER, and surrounding villages
She had a wonderful time.
🏴🏴🇬🇧🇬🇧👍 👍 🙏🙏😃😃
My grandfather used to get POW's from the local camp to do ag work. He said they tried to get the Germans as they were better workers. The Italian POWs used to spend most of their time flirting with the land girls and the milk maids.
I shouldn't have been surprised by farmers betting on better with POWs than city-folk, but I was.
Regarding the POW's the hard-core Nazi's and Fascists were kept in more secure facilities. Even in the US most of them (in particular
those of the Afrika corps) were known to be uncooperative and bullying towards the other POWs. Eventually they were separated
... and ushered in secret into positions of influence or high office in the American government.
i moved to a village near Loughborough in 1975 the population has changed and grown greatly with town people who whilst mostly they are friendly enough make complaints about farming and concrete over their own green spaces. Why did they move here? Yes there are fond memories of POW’s who had been here , one Italian even married into the village.
We also moved to a village nr Loughborough, a year after you. My family still live there and one of my brothers lives in Loughborough itself. When I go back there now I'm always sad at just how much of the countryside around there has gone to development. It was a very nice place to grow-up at the time.
portraits are strange. Other wise excellent.
Is the use of POWs as labour not a war crime? Did the British government ever get criticism for their use of prisoners' labour or was this seen as normal?
Was done widely in the US also
I would say no in this case, especially considering that quite a lot of POWs were actually living with the farmers and weren't under armed guard for quite a large amount of time. Also, I doubt there would have been a large body of criticism especially as people would have seen in the papers what was happening to the cities and large towns in Britain so would have though it was on the road to a fair return.
I don't think you are allowed to make officer POWs work. Isn't that part of the plot of Bridge over the River Kwai?
Officers and other ranks are kept separated as POWs, officers as you said would not have been made to do physical labour.
It's sobering to realize that the understanding gap between rural and city people is far larger than that between the aristocratic colonial and aristocratic English prior to the American revolution. This gap is what leads to objectively hare-brained policy imposed on the countryside by urban elitists, who do not even entertain the objections of the people most impacted by bad policy. Inducting city girls to work on farms probably bought rural England three generations of goodwill that is now dying with the last of the land army. As we see in today's political landscape, appreciation for rural, traditional England is all but dead.
Without the Land Girls Britain would have starved full stop.
The state and productivity of British agriculture in general at the outbreak of war in 1939 was shocking with 65% of our food being imported from the Empire and otherwise. The depression of the 30's had land left bare and labour was drifting away into the factories and similar for vastly better pay and rewards.
The German UBoat blockade was sinking large numbers of cargo ships bringing supplies into our country and it was a dire situation.
I have very much interest in that time period and I have always been involved in farming up in Derbyshire in the Peak District.
The history of the Land Girls has fascinated me for years and we owe them one heck of a lot of gratitude for all they did . Believe me, many if not most, had very poor treatment and were initially at least resented and laughed at before they were valued and shown respect and appreciation.
The Women's Land Army didn't get the acknowledgement they should have done from the government post war either by a country mile ...
In case you didn't know there is a memorial for Land Girls near Buckie in Moray. Well worth a visit.
When you gonna cover the diggers? It would be cool to compare the diggers to current movements like Brazilian landless workers(MST) and via campensina, that's more examples of women in the countryside.
Anglophobia joke
These guys are before my time but having just looked them up we will definitely discuss them! Thanks for the suggestion