Home Fires

Me too nigglynellie (a simple soul that is ).

I think situations such as Pat have always existed. Poor put upon (beaten) wife with a tyrant of a husband she is stuck with. Much easier for a woman to get away these days.

Is it just me or is that Czech guy (Marek) quite desirable?

It's not just you gillybob!! I wouldn't refuse the back of the 1/9d's with him!! I know, first it's the Archers, and now it's Pat being the cause of anxiety!! As has been said, it's so much easier to separate these days with more help and understanding. In those days it was virtually impossible. Even if the affair went well, after the war Marek is bound to be sent back to Czechoslovakia, straight into the arms of Stalin. He can never marry Pat as Bob would never give her a divorce even on a good day!!! More worry ahead I fear!!!!!

It's all going to end in tears (let's hope it will be Bob in tears or worse)

Is it just me, but were the hairstyles awful and ageing in those days?

I wondered about the mouth to mouth, but when I googled it I read that blowing air into the lungs had been known about for hundreds of years. Whether anyone would have done it in the 1940s is something else.

The hair styles and the clothes were aging. But then in those days you went straight from school to looking like a thirty five year old with nothing in between.

Watching last night's episode I did wonder if we were actually growing much Maize in the 1940s? If we did it was surely for animal feed, I remember sweetcorn being something my father talked about after spending part of the war in the US. Along with Coca Cola and hot dogs which were strange and exotic treats.

Yes, I thought the same thing Deedaa. Didn't it look manky compared to what we see in the supermarkets now?

I said to OH about the maize - I don't remember knowing about the existence of it till after the war. But did we feed the animals then on so much cereal?

There are a couple of types of maize and I don't think the one we eat is the same variety as that used for animal feed and flour etc. A farmer's wife told me that type could only be cooked and eaten when very young or it was too hard.

We commented on the maize too.
I sooo want to slap Bob.
NO SPOILERS but we knew what the outcome would be for the factory didn't we.

We shouted, 'Noooooooo' when we saw the maize crop so I googled it.

Apparently, it was used in the manufacture of cordite. They also collected conkers for the same reason.

Who knew?

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/makhist10_prog3d.shtml

I tried googling it, but could find nothing about maize as a crop in England in the 1940s,

Well, who knew, thank you merlotgran

I remember reading something about children collecting conkers but I didn't know about the Maize. I do hope something happens to Bob I haven't disliked a TV baddie so much for a long time.

Let's hope he trips and falls down the stairs when he's anticipating a night of conjugal bliss (!) with Pat. Although even with him out of the way I can't see how she can realistically be with her lover...

Perhaps she'll bump him off and bury his body under that pile of maize!

They're doomed, doomed!!!!! Well it looks that way, with the Czechs moving out to goodness knows where, how can they possibly be together? It's only 1940, so five years minimum even if Bob 'disappears', before they can think of a life together, together with the fact that even should Merek survive, he will undoubtedly be repatriated to Czechoslovakia, to a very uncertain future, unless of course Pat is a widow by this time, then he could marry her and stay! It's a worry that's for certain. Mind you there seems trouble ahead on every front, so nerves are clearly going to be frayed one way or the other!!!!

I think you're all right about the maize!!! Big boo boo by ITV!!

DH thought the field was too large for a WW2 crop. It was also harvested too quickly, cleanly and neatly but that's dramatic licence. It had to be a crop that could be filmed being harvested by hand and there are plenty of fields of maize available for filming given that nowadays it feeds anaerobic digesters.

Interesting reading about needing starch from maize to make acetone which was vital in the manufacture of cordite. Potatoes would also have been suitable but they were a necessary food crop for the nation.

Well yes!! but I think it's beyond poetic license to film a crop being harvested that wouldn't have been planted in the first place!!!! Maize was first grown in the UK in the late 1950's early 1960's not 1940! Bit like the outgoing Wing Commander having a beard in the first episode! The air force didn't and don't have beards!!!!

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/makhist10_prog3d.shtml

I posted this link a little further up-thread, niggly

Maize could no longer be imported from USA so we had to grow our own to aid the production of cordite.

No doubt some use would have been found for the husks and the stems.....Fuel maybe?

Well exactly, when imported maize ran out it was supplemented by conkers not by home grown maize. Farmers were growing wheat, sugar beet, barley, potatoes carrots, turnips etc. The nation had to be fed.

I do like the programme but do think the continuity is poor, as well as historical fact. But it doesn't real,y matter I take it for what it is.

I heard that the conkers were never used there were piles of them left at the end of the war. I also thought the maize was unbelievable.
Pat could live in sin with her airman after the war - Bob will never divorce her. The reality was that such women had little choice - they had promised to honour and obey and that's what they had to do.

I'm sure you're right starbird about the conkers(and acorns!!!) Imported Maize, and then conkers were really only used for making cordite in WW1. By WW2 cordite was only really used to operate navy guns and was quickly superseded hence the redundant conkers!!!! If Marek survived the war he would have almost certainly been forcibly repatriated back to Czechoslovakia. The only way he could have stayed here, if he had wanted to, would have been to have married Pat, and as you say Bob would never have divorced her. After my father was killed, my mother met and became very fond of a Polish Airforce Officer. When the war ended he wanted to go back to Poland to help rebuild that shattered country, with us following later. Unfortunately Stalin had other ideas, and their plans of building a life together ended with him and thousands of others on their return being arrested and shot as traitors. I'm afraid this is what would would certainly have happened to Marek if as it seems he would have wanted to go home and take Pat with him.

What a sad story nigglynellie although I suppose there must have been many similar ones. My father in law was lucky. His family were Italian immigrants and he joined the army and ended up being captured and sent to a POW camp in Italy. He had to spend his time there pretending to be English because the Italians wouldn't have taken kindly to him fighting against them. His mother had to write to him using a false name.

Oh, thank you Dd. Yes it was a very sad story, both for us and thousands of others. After the war the forced repatriation of foreign troops who fought for the allies and whose countries were by now in the grip of 'Uncle Joe' was imo a very black mark on the part of the British Government, particularly the Cossaks (Stalin demanded their return) who were going back to certain death, and begged to be allowed to stay, some even committing suicide sooner than being forced back to the USSR. Luckily later,my mother met and married a wonderful chap who had been a POW in the Far East, so we were the lucky ones, unlike so many others. War is hell, and that's the truth!