The Westborough School Victory Garden
Westborough Primary School in Westcliff on Sea (whose Cardboard Classroom previously featured in Permaculture Magazine 36) needed imaginative and creative ideas to enhance their National Curriculum coverage of the Home Front during World War Two. Prior to 1939, Britain imported around 55 million tons of it's food supplies. Once war broke out, this trade was severely disrupted by German U-Boat blockades of British merchant vessels. With imports of food declining, rationing was introduced, as well as a 'Dig for Victory' campaign that encouraged every man and woman to turn their lawns and gardens over to vegetable production as well as small scale livestock husbandry. By 1943 over a million tons of vegetables were being grown in gardens and allotments, and domestic hen keepers were producing about twenty-five per cent of the country's supplies of fresh eggs. So when building a mock Anderson air-raid shelter was suggested, part-time gardeners Debby Fulton and Emma Thomson not only rose to the challenge but went further by deciding to recreate a complete Victory Garden.
Before - March 2006
Starting from a bare site consisting of a concrete base covered by rubble and assorted rubbish, raised beds were constructed with the help of site manager Paul Lloyd, utilising scrap timber left over from a major building project in another part of the school. The beds were then filled with soil and mushroom compost, with vegetables and fruit being planted into them over the next few weeks. Many of these had been grown from seed by the children, including the after school gardening club, although a donation of tomato plants from local mental health and community gardening charity Growing Together was gratefully received! Indeed, several local shops and businesses contributed to the garden, both financially and in terms of providing memorabilia such as ration books, 'Dig for Victory' campaign posters, an old fashioned mangle and other period details. Further authenticity is lent by a mock-up chicken run and a fake beehive that in reality disguise compost containers.
Emma and Debby then learned of a real Anderson Shelter, still intact from the war, in the back garden of a house only a few streets away from the school. The Polson family was approached and were only too happy to let the project have it, trading it for a brand new wooden shed! Dismantling, transporting and then re-assembling the shelter was back-breaking work, but well worth the effort.
After - Summer 2006
In barely more than three months an underused eyesore has been transformed into a flourishing cornucopia of lettuces, tomatoes, courgettes, peas, onions, spinach, climbing beans, chard and strawberries, with potatoes, beetroots, carrots and parsnips looking good for autumn harvest. There's even an aubergine or two, and some peppers, which maybe wouldn't have been around much in a nineteen forties war garden, but hey! Well deserved recognition of the team's labours came in the form of a Gold Award (first prize) in the borough's prestigious 'Southend in Bloom' competition, with the judge remarking that he was extremely impressed by what he'd seen.
Debby said, "We are really proud of what we have achieved, and the staff and the children are too. We hope to keep it as a productive Second World War garden for years to come, and that children will visit and get a feel of what the world was like at this time better than by reading any text book.
These days many children don't even know that potatoes come from under the ground or what a tomato plant looks like. This will help them to realise what real food is about and how it was produced in the days before supermarkets and McDonalds."
A world before the tumble dryer!
The Victory Garden isn't just about looking to the past, it provides lessons for the future. Whilst all of us hope that the dark days of the war-torn 1940s will never return, the ever increasing likelihood of energy descent means that the next generation will almost certainly have to relearn the skills of local food growing and community self-reliance sooner rather than later.
Graham Burnett, July 2006