Life on a British Farm,,Winter 1952 at Hiltonbury Farm – A King Dies, Life Goes On In My Mothers Diaries

Welcome back to My Mother’s Diaries and to Hiltonbury Farm in January and February 1952.A new year begins with all the familiar rhythms of family and farming life — children returning to school, wet and frosty winter weather, sewing and mending beside the fire, dancing, cinema visits, shooting, farm meetings, calves being born and a constant stream of friends and relatives arriving for tea.Heather starts school, Mother battles with making a green taffeta evening dress, and there is worrying news when five of the dairy cows fail their tuberculosis test.Then, on 6 February, two very different events become forever linked in the family diary. It is Jennifer’s birthday — but also the day Britain learns that King George VI has died.At Hiltonbury, Mother records the sombre atmosphere, Winston Churchill’s broadcast and the King’s funeral alongside the ordinary events of family life. It is a wonderful example of how great moments in history appeared in the middle of otherwise ordinary days.There are happier moments too. Lassie has four puppies, Andrew comes home for half-term, the men thresh the oat rick, and the children pick and tie an extraordinary one hundred bunches of snowdrops to sell in the village for a little pocket money.There is sadness when the family cat, Smudge, is killed on the Hursley Road, but as February ends, the snowdrops are appearing and the first signs of spring are returning to Hiltonbury.Whatever was happening in the wider world, there was always another job waiting on the farm.Join me, Andy Vining, for January and February 1952 — two more months in the remarkable everyday story of Hiltonbury Farm.