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  • Published: 30 April 2012
  • ISBN: 9780852653562
  • Imprint: Guardian Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

All Hands to the Harvest



A poignant collection of archive pieces from the Guardian's perennially popular 'Country Diary'.

The twentieth century saw two world wars and countless other conflicts whose effects on society have been well documented. Here you will find the less familiar story of how these international struggles managed to reach into the quietest corners of the British countryside.

From Battle of Britain vapour trails looping over summer cornfields and affecting local hawks and waterfowl to the lone ringed bird who limped in from invaded Czechoslovakia, diarists note down and discuss the momentous changes wrought by wars on British country life.

- Women and children fetching in the harvest as their menfolk fight in Flanders.
- Italian prisoners of war singing opera in Herefordshire orchards
- Mobilising the Women's Institute to make jam for the war effort

Beautifully written and subtly observed, these rediscovered treasures reveal how for all its soft beauty, Britain's rural landscape has been shaped, in part, by man at war with man.

  • Published: 30 April 2012
  • ISBN: 9780852653562
  • Imprint: Guardian Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

About the author

Martin Wainwright

Martin Wainwright is The Guardian's
Northern Editor. He has written and edited
over ten books, including Wainwright: The
Man who loved the Lakes; A Lifetime of
Mountains
, the country diaries of A Harry
Griffin; The Guardian Book of the Countryside
and Morris Minor, the biography.

Also by Martin Wainwright

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