This is my friend, Joyce. She's got a lovely peaches-and-cream complexion, a lilting British accent and calls her pantry a "larder." My toddler is enchanted by her. So am I. She generates warmth and enthusiasm and possesses a terrific sense of humor. Today, she lives on a quite suburban street in the Texas Hill Country where she is jotting down her memoirs and preparing artfully constructed scrapbooks about her family and life.
As a child, years before she moved to the States permanently, Joyce and her family dwelled in North London. It was from there that she and one of her sisters were evacuated, along with thousands of other children, to England's coast for safety. She says that the plan to keep her and her sisters safe backfired...the community in which she spent 3 months hiding from German planes was the first one bombed (technically, the British shot down a Nazi plane which crashed and exploded--but the result was equally horrific). "When the bombing started, I wrote to my mother 'Please come and get us,'" says Joyce. "And she did."
Joyce, then 11, returned to the family's home, which included a large garden. It was not unusual for her family to raise plants, but during the war it became essential for survival. Encouraged to participate in the British government's Dig for Victory program, which is similar to our WWII-era Victory Garden efforts, the Carter family raised food to supplement rations. "There was a very large garden on the side of the house. My mother grew everything in the garden...peas, beans...all kinds of vegetables...lettuce, you name it," Joyce says. "And my father decided to keep chickens. They kept chickens and rabbits. We ate the chickens...but never the rabbits." She chuckles. "It was a brand new house. It had been a nursery. To break up the ground, we grew potatoes. I'd imagine it would be three quarters of an acre [in size]. And at the time, that's what one did was to break up the ground...one grew potatoes. The whole neighborhood got potatoes."
The garden housed not just plants during the war. Upon her return to London with her sister from their stay at the coast, she discovered her father had constructed an air raid shelter of corrugated tin, complete with two bunk beds for the girls. It was covered with dirt and plants, all to shield the children from Nazi bombers' view.
For all the anxiety Londoners felt, Joyce relishes having witnessed the depth of her parent's character in the face of the Blitz. And while she was grateful to see the war end, she regrets a bit not having served her homeland. "We were required to do mandatory service," she says. "But the war ended three months before I began. I was so disappointed."
In retrospect, she sees great value in the Dig for Victory program. "We were healthier, I think, because of it," she says. While her family was able to garden exclusively at home, the British made every effort to provide all citizens access to land for cultivation. Near Joyce's house, the government established a sizeable allotment (community) garden.
"At the end of our street there was a huge area...as big, I'd say, as a football field," says Joyce. "They divided it up, and people who couldn't grow very large gardens were given space...on a permanent basis."
Because rationing continued in England until the fifties, Joyce's family continued to grow vegetables. "It was just what one did," she observes. She continued to garden after she moved stateside, and fondly recalls happy days living on land with a California apple orchard and a huge garden. "It was just beautiful," she says fondly.
Today she has a lovely yard in the Texas Hill Country, and lots of fascinating memories to share about her childhood. I'm grateful that she allowed me to share her story here.
For Further Exploration:
- Dig for Victory
- Dig for Victory Leaflet (Earthly Pursuits)
- The Blitz (Wikipedia)
- Air Raid Shelters (Wikipedia)
- Air Raid Shelters (Portcities Liverpool)
- Children's Evacuation from London
- On a tangent: For some reason, Joyce's remarks about allotment gardens made me think of my post about business-related gardens. Serendipity struck while I was looking for something else...here's a WWII-era workplace poster advertising VG plots for employees from the National Archives. Check it out!
Above image copyright P.Price
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