Wartime Farm

The team face the farming conditions of 1944 when Britain had been at war for five years and millions of troops packed into the fields of southern England as the Allies prepared for the D-Day landings. Farmers did their bit by growing vast amounts of flax but the wettest summer for a century has devastated the crop at the farm, and Alex and Peter must take drastic action to save it. Ruth revives the traditional craft of basket making to create a pigeon transporter while Alex and Peter head out into the English Channel to find out how racing pigeons were trained to carry intelligence to and from occupied France. As D-Day drew closer, foreign troops formed close bonds with the locals, drinking together and playing games, such as the baseball game Americans played at the farm in 1944, which the team recreates.