Swindon in the Past Lane

Our fourth and final event of the day.  First the lights went out then Hilary Devey was thirty minutes late.  Was she worth the wait? Frankly, no.  Five minutes into the interview and I was hoping for another power cut. Inconsistencies and contradictions peppered her recollections in conversation with fawning award winning Times columnist Deborah Ross. I couldn't keep up with at which point her son went to the boarding school that introduced him to heroin or when she was wrapping him in tinfoil to keep him warm in the home she couldn't afford to heat yet where she employed a nanny. Much was made of the men in Hilary's life but when asked which lucky Dragon might take her fancy - Duncan, Peter or Theo, she failed to understand the question.  Deborah also struggled with names and faces and referred to 'little Ewan McGregor' who apparently now introduces Dragons' Den.  I'm assuming she meant economist and journalist Evan Davis and not the Scottish born H...

This week's episode of Wartime Farm saw historian Ruth Goodman getting to grips with the availability of ordinary foodstuffs, rationing and the role the Women’s Institutes played during the war. In Swindon the first meeting of the Food Control Committee took place during the second week of September 1939.  It was already anticipated that there would be rationing of butcher’s meat, bacon, butter, margarine, lards, fat and sugar. Chairman of the new committee, Swindon Mayor Harry Hustings, announced that plans for the registration of customers was under way and that forms would be sent to every household within the week.  Ration cards would be issued and it was hoped that food queues would be shorter than during the previous war.  Mr Hustings commented that as far as he could see there would be little opportunity of profiteering in food stuffs. The rationing of coal as of October 1 was announced and supplies, along with gas and electricity for domestic and sm...