Northamptonshire at War, 1939–45 by Kevin Turton

Author:Kevin Turton [Turton, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War II, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781473876699
Google: 1LLNDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-10-30T22:19:15+00:00

Wellingborough, Irthlingborough and surrounding villages aimed at raising £280,000. Thrapston, where a mock-up of a prow of a battleship was set up in the market place, attempted to raise £72,000 and adopt a motor torpedo boat. Isham targeted £2,000. Kettering, in conjunction with Burton Latimer, Corby, Desborough, Rothwell and some thirty smaller villages, aimed to raise £250,000. Oundle aimed for £120,000, Northampton and the surrounding villages set out to raise in excess of £300,000, while Rushden, Higham Ferrers and Raunds combined efforts to pull in over £250,000. So it went on across the county, and all successfully exceeded their targets. This was done through a combination of funds raised by street savings clubs, house-to-house canvassing, parades in towns, fetes, dances, businesses creating their own savings groups and individuals buying through post offices and banks and by involving organizations like the ATC, Women’s Land Army, Fire Brigade and the WVS. The county worked very much as a team, all determined to succeed, and it worked.

But it was not just money that was needed. Farmers were looking at ways to improve and increase crop yields, not just in cereal crops but also in grassland management for dairy herds. At Oundle, one of the first educational and instructional meetings was held in the Victoria Hall. Set up by the government under the auspices of the NFU (National Farmers’ Union) and the Ministry of Agriculture, its intention was to help farmers improve the way they cultivated their land. Since the start of the war, the country had never succeeded in creating large reserves of imported feedstuffs such as barley, maize and oilseeds. What the Ministry wanted to do was increase crop yields in these areas in order that dairy herds produced more milk. With meat becoming ever more scarce, milk was seen as vital. To that end, they were trying to impress upon the farming community that each farm must be able to provide its own feedstuffs. Reliance upon imports, in light of the German U-boat campaign, no longer guaranteed continuity of supply. What was proposed was ley farming, an old system of agriculture used by farms with large areas of grassland. It was essentially a method of using land initially for cash crops, then allowing it to lie fallow to grow hay, seed crops or as pasture for a number of years. According to the Northants War Agricultural Committee, this system and seed crop variations would enable farms to become self-sufficient and increase the milk yield in most locations across the county. As other meetings followed across the shire, this approach became the predominant message, and new, different crops began to appear as the year went on, one of which was sunflowers.

Instructional, informative meetings were not only taking place for farming. There was a recognition by the government and a locally identified need by Northamptonshire County Council that a new arm of the civil defence needed to be formed. Firebomb raids by the Luftwaffe had become ever more prevalent in some parts of the country.

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