大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jean Sharman, Scotland CSV on behalf of Elizabeth Gray and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

At the beginning of the war I was registered as a botanist at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.

I was enlisted as a gardens allotment volunteer and would go round advising people how to grow food. The same thing happened in the 1914-18 war. Ground was dug up and made into allotments at Blackford hill and Inverleith Park and round about the Meadows in the heart of Edinburgh.

Most folk in Edinburgh weren鈥檛 gardeners and we showed them what to do. There was a limited number of seeds and plants and I used to take some seed from my own garden to give to people.

To get a plot people had to apply to the headquarters at St Andrews House.

Supplies of grass seed dried up at that time completely. It was used up to sow runways all over the place.

In 1943 I went to Aberdeen and was a pioneer in working out how to store potatoes indoors because there was no wheat so there was no straw.

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