Scarcity and Hard Times breed strong men & women. I suspect that is very much the case for my parents and the events of this book. I guess as time goes by you get to a point where you look back and realise you no longer read about history but realise you have lived it.

I maintain that modern history is something I wish I learned more about at school - though sadly if you had asked me back then I would have refuted that claim. Having grown up in a farming village it is fascinating to see so many of the changes that were discussed in the book are still evident today (well at least while I was growing up, it seems that the world is changing at an ever increasing pace, so much so village life seems almost unrecognisable). This book pretty much follows and expands on the TV show which rather than focusing on world events focused more on the lives of those on a farm and how they changed. In fact as result of many of their stories I have long since wanted to know more about what they went through and experienced.

This was a time my parents were young children in and as such can remember many of the events depicted and discussed. The wartime farm obvious pretty much explains the time period the documentary was set in. So here is my attempt and trying to correct this. I have read and reviewed a number of their books (which also relate to their TV documentary series) but I realised I have overlooked a number of them. Having finished watching (and reading) the story of how steam changed the British Isles I felt I wanted to go back over some of the other adventures of Ruth and her companions.

Wartime Farm by Peter Ginn