大象传媒

GEORGE BITMAN has always lived in Longdon, and worked on a farm in Welland near Malvern. He was never short of food during the way because people kept pigs and sheep, which they reared to eat themselves.

Each time an animal was killed it was split up between his friends and neighbours. They salted the meat to keep it, grew their own vegetables, took the cream off the milk to make butter, and grew fruit or raided the hedgerows to make jam. They got water from a pump which they carried into their house.

During the war his wife was expecting twins. As every window had to be blacked out he made sure this was done, but one evening she got up onto a box to draw the curtains in the kitchen, then fell badly and subsequently lost one of the babies. He still remembers this with great sadness.

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