Eight-part OU/BBC history series on Wartime Farm

In a new OU/BBC eight-part series, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are taking on their biggest challenge yet, turning the clock back to run Manor Farm in Hampshire exactly as it would have been during the Second World War.

During the series, which is called Wartime Farm and starts at 8pm on Thursdy 6 September on BBC TWO, they will face up to one of the biggest the challenges ever seen in the history of the British countryside – in what Churchill called ‘the frontline of freedom’.

As well as tackling the trials of day to day living in volatile times, the team will be managing livestock, attempting to cultivate unused land, tackling new tools and technologies, and learning the basics of civil defence, while all the time confronting shortages.

To accompany the series, the OU’s Open Media Unit has produced a free 16-page Wartime Farm booklet to help explain how Britain fed itself during the Second World War and how rationing affected the wartime diet. 

For a copy visit www.open.edu/openlearn/wartimefarm where you can also try two new interactive challenges Beat the Ministry and Food in the Second World War.