H. Middleton, 1940‘Dig for Victory’ as a slogan for a campaign to produce more food from gardens and allotments was adopted by the government at the beginning of the war but a renewed push came in the summer of 1940. It was a time of great anxiety but there was a determination not to be defeatist. The message came through that ‘the government expects the Women’s Institutes to play an important part in replacing those lost supplies’. They were encouraged to plant root crops for the winter and to harvest whatever they could in their own gardens but also in the orchards, hedgerows and woods. ‘With the help of sugar and without it, our members are going to be instrumental in saving for future use hundreds of tons of fruits of the earth from our home gardens and orchard.’1 The war had entered a new phase, as we have seen, and the two threats that concentrated people’s minds at that time were the potential invasion of Britain by the Germans and potential food shortages.Mrs Milburn wrote in her diary on 24 August:Oh dear, what madness all this is – parents separated from their children, husbands from wives, guns and bombs blowing houses and people to pieces – Insanity Fair in truth, but what could one do?
