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Edwardian Farm Ep 11/12

Wednesday 12 January

9.00-10.00pm ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO

• Press pack

It's harvest time for Peter Ginn, Ruth Goodman and Alex Langlands

It's July on the Edwardian farm and harvest time means all hands on deck as the team, archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn and domestic historian Ruth Goodman, face their busiest month of the year.

The team bring in the cherry harvest with the help of their Dartmoor pony, Laddy; Ruth tries her hand at salmon netting; and Alex and Peter take drastic measures to save their potato crop from being destroyed by plant disease.

Ruth drops in on an Edwardian school room where local school-children are shown how they would have been educated during the Edwardian era. The school would have usually housed 60 children, but during the harvest season most of the boys would have been in the fields labouring. This would soon change – a number of laws made schooling compulsory – but for now, in a history lesson like no other, the children rally round and help the farming team to bring in the potato harvest, where every potato must be collected, sorted and washed.

Once this is done the team can relax with a rare day out at the seaside, the only holiday an Edwardian farmer would have had, complete with musical entertainment, new-fangled swimming costumes and a Punch and Judy show.

CD4