Close up on this February 1940 Calendar page of Mr Middleton the famous veteran BBC Radio Gardener, broadcasting from 1934 until his death in 1945.
A random lovely item from our World War Zoo Gardens Collection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._H._Middleton
Blogposted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo, 18 July 2018
A wet but mildish start to the year with nothing much happening in the World War Zoo wartime garden at Newquay Zoo in January.
What would Wartime gardening expert Mr. Middleton have to say about January gardening?
A Titchmarsh before his time … C.H. Middleton, the radio gardener. This original wartime paperback has recently been reissued.
18 September is the 70th anniversary of the sudden death in 1945 of BBC radio celebrity Dig for Victory gardener Mr Cecil Henry Middleton.
Mr. Middleton rightly placed alongside our wartime garden, World War Zoo Gardens sign, Newquay Zoo, Cornwall, UK
First TV gardening programme?
Mr Middleton, 21 November 1936 – Middleton was an early pioneer of TV gardening before WW2, but sadly he died before the BBC gardening resumed on television.
Recently many of his simple and readable garden guides and radio talks have been reprinted for a whole new generation.
We have previously covered some of his garden advice – look through our blogposts earlier this year.
Life, Work and Tributes
There is a very good Wikipedia entry Mr. Middleton for him, covering his life and published works.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/programming/gardening
There is also delightful Pathe newsreel of his ‘chats over the garden fence’.
This film footage is reused in the 1945 Pathe Newsreel “Passing of an Old Friend” which ends with Mr Middleton walking away up a country lane – becoming his last farewell to his audience – then footage of the flower-bedecked funeral procession of Mr Middleton moving away from St. Mathews Church, Surbiton.
An animated cartoon Mr Middleton on Pathe Newsreel talks compost in wartime.
A comic 1938 gardening song “Mr Middleton Says it’s Right” by trio Vine, More and Nevard on Pathetone Pathe newsreel. Proof of his celebrity …
In 2012 an interesting Mr Middleton inspired modern gardening blog began with lots of links to his surviving media archive.
His memorial gates erected in 1955 at his original BBC plot at Langham Gardens are now outside the BBC written archives at Caversham.
A floral tribute (now lost?) was a dark red Hybrid Tea Rose named after him, Registration name ‘C.H. Middleton’ was bred by Benjamin R. Cant & Sons (United Kingdom, 1939). This Hybrid Tea Rose was described as “Crimson. Strong fragrance. Large, very double, high-centered bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season.”
“Hasten slowly”: Mr. Middleton, fondly remembered.
He was and is the inspiration to our wartime garden:
And our own attempt at being Mr. Middleton, albeit in modern podcast form in 2010: https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/from-bean-pods-to-podcasts-the-first-world-war-zoo-gardens-blog-podcast/
Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Garden project, Newquay Zoo
We have had some great positive responses from people who’d seen our photos from the World War Zoo Gardens Wartime allotment at Newquay Zoo.
Here as promised are some more photos, including more flowers for a bit of wartime colour.
More photos of our poppies in the World War Zoo Garden, Newquay Zoo, August 2015
Flowers in a wartime garden?
18th September 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the sudden death in 1945 of Mr. Middleton the celebrity wartime garden broadcaster and writer.
One of my favourite quotes from him is extra poignant in that sadly Mr Middleton never lived to fulfil or see this postwar return to flowering gardens:
In happier days we talked of rock gardens, herbaceous borders and verdant lawns; but with the advent of war and its grim demands, these pleasant features rapidly receded into the background to make way for the all important food crop … Presumably most of my old friends still listen when I hold forth on Leeks, Lettuces and Leatherjackets, instead of Lilac, Lilies and Lavender … These are critical times, but we shall get through them, and the harder we dig for victory, the sooner will the roses be with us again …
Quoted on the back of Duff Hart-Davis’ new book Our Land At War: A Portrait of Rural Britain 1939-45 (William Collins, 2015) – review forthcoming on this blog soon.
More edible nasturtiums in the World War Zoo Garden, Newquay Zoo, August 2015
“Money spent on flowers, in moderation, is never wasted”
quoted in C. H. Middleton, Your Garden in Wartime, 1941 (p. 26, reprinted Aurum Press, 2010)
“For the moment potatoes, onions, carrots and so on must receive our full attention: but we may look forward to the time when this nightmare will end, as end it must – and the morning will break with all our favourite flowers to greet us once more, and, who knows perhaps my next volume of talks will be of roses, mignonette, daffodils and lilies.” C.H.M, June 1941
C. H. Middleton, Your Garden in Wartime, 1941 (p. 5, reprinted Aurum Press, 2010)
More pictures of colourful and often edible flowers in the World War Zoo Garden, Newquay Zoo, August 2015.
Perennial sweet peas – as the edible peas failed to germinate this year – in the World War Zoo Garden, Newquay Zoo, August 2015
The alternate baking and soaking weather this August has really brought out the strong colours in this veg such as this Ruby / Rhubarb Chard.
Rhubarb chard in the World War Zoo Garden, Newquay Zoo, August 2015
Perennial sweet peas overlooking the emptying summer beds, produce harvested.
Proof of good eating! One of the Globe artichokes picked with our Junior Keepers this week at Newquay Zoo and thrown into the rare ‘Yaki’ Sulawesi Macaque Monkeys becomes enrichment – unusual food, plaything, must-have toy …
This is food for our animals so fresh it travels food metres, not miles, and is still almost growing when eaten, foods seconds or minutes from allotment ground to animal gourmets.
Young Sulawesi Macaque Monkey and a Globe Artichoke almost as big as him from our wartime garden allotment, Newquay Zoo, August 2015
We hope Mr Middleton would approve of our edible garden with flowers and vegetables, even though not everything has gone well this year.
The harvest of a Macaque and Capuchin monkey favourite – broad beans in fresh pods and on the stem / haulm – has been very poor this year. They were saved seed and seemed to show no better progress on the Growmore fertiliser side of the plot than the organic green manure side. These will soon be harvested, the haulms dug in and planting for next spring begun.
Sulawesi macaque monkeys on our zoo graphics sign for the garden, tucking into broad beans. Top photo: Jackie Noble.
Posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo World War Zoo Gardens project August 2015
February and March gardening advice from Mr Middleton from the “Sow and Reap” 1943 calendar in our World War Zoo Gardens collection at Newquay Zoo. Happy Gardening!
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
Some bird-friendly advice about pest control.
Time to order your seeds now! Soon time to get sowing.
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
Spinach, lettuce, broccoli, carrots – sow!
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
We’ll finish March with Mr Middleton’s late March advice, as he was a man who knew his onions …
You can read more about Mr. Middleton and his January 1943 advice in our previous post.
All calendar words Mr Middleton’s own. Source Credit: Sow and Reap 1943 Calendar by Mr Middleton, from the World War Zoo Gardens collection, Newquay Zoo.
Mr Middleton’s gardening calender “Sow and Reap” 1943 (images from my collection).
The pencil marks on the dates I think refer to the original owner’s chicken breeding or egg production, judging by other strange pencil notes inside this calender.
This calender is put together from a mix of Mr. Middleton’s gardening advice from other sources and publications, recycled by an obviously busy Mr. Middleton. We will post the relevant section month by month throughout 2015, another useful guide for our wartime allotment project.
Wartime rationing 75 years on and Mr Middleton’s wartime gardening advice
2015 marks the 75th anniversary of rationing being introduced on 8th January 1940 and the 70th anniversary of Mr Middleton’s death on 19th September 1945.
How time flies! We marked this rationing date on the 70th anniversary in 2010, several years into the World War Zoo Gardens project, alongside the Imperial War Museum – see the legacy site for http://food.iwm.org.uk 2010 Ministry of Food Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, marking 70 years since rationing was introduced.
A Titchmarsh before his time … C.H. Middleton, the radio gardener. This original wartime paperback has recently been reissued.
2015 is also sadly the 70th anniversary of the death of Cecil Henry Middleton (b. 22 February 1886) on 18 September 1945.
On the Ministry of Food IWM site, there is also some great December 1945 gardening advice pages from this wartime celebrity gardener Mr. Middleton. The whole 1945 leaflet set has been reprinted recently as a book edited by Twigs Way (Sabrestorm Press, 2009). We will feature more about Mr. Middleton throughout 2015. As well as Pathe Newsreel footage of Mr. Middleton, there is an interesting Mr Middleton blog.
It’s a quiet time in the World War Zoo Garden allotment at Newquay Zoo, a time to plan rather than to plant and sow. “Hasten slowly”, my favourite gardening advice from Mr. Middleton.
Happy gardening! Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo.
This “War and Peace Christmas Pudding” was made in Canada during the First World War. The recipe was published in the Second World War by the Ministry of Food Government “Food Facts” in newspapers and radio programmes as part of the “Kitchen Front” campaign in Britain. According to some, it makes a good wartime Christmas pudding. We decided at Newquay Zoo to put it to the staff taste test as part of our World War Zoo Gardens project.
Our trial War and Peace Christmas Pudding – before pretasting by keepers – at Newquay Zoo. Trial quarter ingredients sized version on a side plate.
War and Peace Christmas Pudding Recipe WW1 / WW2
Ingredients:
225 grams (8 ounces / oz) flour
225 g (8 oz) breadcrumbs
100 g (4 oz) suet
100 g (4 oz) dried fruit
5 ml (1 teaspoon / tsp) mixed spice
225g (8 oz) grated raw potato
225g (8 oz) grated raw carrot
5 ml (1 tsp) bicarbonate of soda
Method:
Mix all the ingredients together and turn into a well-greased pudding bowl.
The bowl should not be more than two thirds full.
Boil or steam for at least 2 hours.
Imperial ounce measurements have been updated to equivalent grams.
Source: “Food Facts” Ministry of Food, Britain 1939-45
Setting it alight, as is traditional with a Christmas pudding, would require some alcohol or spirits, increasingly scarce in wartime. Custard would have been rare too, though Bird’s Custard Powder (replacing eggs in the recipe since 1837, very useful in wartime) and other companies continued to advertise throughout the war.
Newquay Zoo’s brave Austerity Christmas Pudding tester Nick in suitably protective wartime headgear.
Taste testing the War and Peace Christmas Pudding
In pursuit of our World War Zoo Gardens project activities, Newquay Zoo’s fabulous café team, headed up by ex-military chef Jeremy, have cooked up a trial one of these puddings to test out on Newquay Zoo staff. Apparently the test one that we served up to zoo staff was only a quarter of the recipe ingredients.
Zoo staff reaction was mixed. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest about the ingredients. Some of the cafe team politely said that they’d eat it again. Many reckoned it needed custard or a good soaking in spirits (we couldn’t set it alight), whilst others thought it ‘not very sweet’ and it made them appreciate a luxurious modern Christmas pudding.
Some keepers wondered whether any of the animals would eat it? Since the famous zoo ‘banana ban’ for monkeys of 2014 at Paignton, Newquay and other zoos, we have become increasingly used in our zoo animal diet sheets to replacing rich sugary exotic fruit (selectively bred and grown for human palates) with more ‘sweet’ vegetables, albeit mixing the wartime standby sweeteners of carrot, parsnip with other more modern imports like sweet potato. I’m sure this substitution was also how wartime zoos scraped by feeding their animals without imports of exotic fruits.
I was surprised how close the War and Peace Christmas Pudding was to one of the few wartime dishes that was popularly reckoned to have survived wartime into the postwar British menu – carrot cake.
Thanks to all the Newquay Zoo cafe team and brave zoo volunteers for this interesting taste lesson about rationing!
Feed the Birds: The Final Taste Test – or Food Waste?
Being rich in suet and a bit crumbly, I tested the final scraps of wartime Christmas pudding on the bird table. Bullfinches, robins, blackbirds, sparrows, crows and pigeons all quickly came down for a crumb or morsel as it turns colder; they weren’t fussy about the strange ingredients in the recipe.
Wasting food like this on the bird table or on pet animals was of course illegal in wartime and liable to prosecution as pointed out in the Imperial War Museum Dig For Victory pdf and the excellent Cooksinfo.com website points out about British Wartime Food.
Wartime rationing and gardening
2015 marks the 75th anniversary of rationing being introduced on 8th January 1940 and the 70th anniversary of Mr Middleton’s death on 19th September 1945.
How time flies – we marked this on the 70th anniversary in 2010, several years into the World War Zoo Gardens project, alongside the Imperial War Museum.
At the legacy site for http://food.iwm.org.uk 2010 Ministry of Food Exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem, marking 70 years since rationing was introduced, there is an interesting recipe for ‘plum and russet apple mincemeat‘ at http://food.iwm.org.uk/?p=1045
There is also some great December 1945 gardening advice pages from wartime celebrity gardener Mr. Middleton http://food.iwm.org.uk/?p=1057&album=18&gallery=18 The whole 1945 leaflet set has been reprinted recently as a book edited by Twigs Way (Sabrestorm Press. 2009). We will feature more about him in 2015. There is an interesting Mr Middleton blog to look at meanwhile.
An alternative Christmas pud recipe can be found on the interesting Eat For Victory website and blog .
More simple wartime rationing recipes (pdfs) can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/heroes
You can find another wartime recipe that we use with visiting schools doing our wartime zoo workshops ; if its quiet enough in the café we knock up a batch of savoury potato biscuits – see recipe below.
A Fruitful Happy Christmas and a Prosperous Gardening New Year from all involved in the World War Zoo Gardens Project at Newquay Zoo!
Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo
That Wartime Savoury Potato Biscuit recipe
cooked up if time for World War Zoo Gardens workshop days
Adapted from original Recipe Potatoes: Ministry of Food wartime leaflet No. 17
Makes about 24 approx 3 inch biscuits
Ingredients
2 ounces margarine
3 ounces plain flour
3 ounces cooked mashed potato
6 tablespoons grated cheese*
1.5 teaspoons table salt
Pinch of cayenne or black pepper
Cooking instructions
1. Rub margarine into flour
2. Add potato, salt, pepper (and cheese, if using this*)
3. Work to a stiff dough
4. Roll out thinly and cut into shapes – festive shapes for Christmas if wanted!
5. Bake in a moderate oven, 15 to 20 minutes.
* N.B. Leave out cheese if you have dairy allergy, the pepper is enough to make the taste ‘interesting’.
Enjoy!
Display corner from World War Zoo gardens project June 2010 - Fox Rosehill Gardens, Falmouth, Cornwall display
Hooray! Our World War Zoo gardens project has just passed the 5000 reader mark since we started the blog in Summer 2009.
We have also recently celebrated our first ‘podcast’ last week – have you heard this?
We’re now putting the World War Zoo garden project, displays, launch weekend, Facebook & Twitter pages, blog and all forward for a prestigious BIAZA Education (General & Public Visitor) award.(British and Irish Association of Zoos And Aquaria) www.biaza.org.uk The deadline is July 23rd, 2010.
We need your help! We always need feedback and comment from users, readers or visitors on such projects.
Did it surprise you to learn about this neglected aspect of history?
Did it surprise you to learn that a modern zoo has a wartime Dig For Victory allotment on one of its former lawns?
Have you enjoyed looking at some of the objects in the zoo’s wartime collection, featured in photographs on the site?
Did you get the connection? Has World War Zoo made you think differently about the past and the resource challenges of the future?
Has it evoked any interesting memories or family stories of the time? Would you like to share them with us?
Some of our source material - old wartime gardening books by the fabulous Mr. Middleton, Imperial War museum seeds from their Ministry of Food exhibition online shop, 1940s varieties available from modern seed suppliers like Suttons, all in an ARP 1940s tin medical box - World War Zoo gardens display, Newquay Zoo
Many thanks to those of you who have already left comments or sent us emails about our project and its unusual way of communicating sustainability, recycling and grow your own and food miles “with a Vera Lynn soundtrack” by looking at the experiences of zoos, aquariums and botanic gardens in the 1940s.
We’d love you to leave us a comment.
You can browse the earlier articles back to July 2009 or look at our blogroll for useful links, including the excellent Imperial War Museum Ministry of Food exhibition running throughout 2010.
You can comment via our blog direct to the project team.
Matt Clarke of Kernow Pods dropped into Newquay Zoo the other day to catch up with how our World War Zoo gardens project was growing , recreating a wartime zoo keeper’s dig for victory garden.
The iconic "dig for victory" poster of 1941 displayed in our World War Zoo gardens at Newquay Zoo amid growing food for the animals.
Radio was much used by early garden celebrities such as Mr. Middleton to encourage people involved on the “Kitchen Front” and “Dig For Victory ” campaign. So we thought it only right that we carried on this tradition with modern media!
A freelance radio journalist and podcaster, Matt Clarke recorded our first podcast blog for the project here – World War zoo veg talk June 2010 Newquay Zoo / KernowPod . We hope you enjoy it!
You can find out more about Kernow Pod on matthew@kernowpods.com
You can find out more about the World War Zoo gardens project on this blog roll by looking at our many archived posts.
Find out all the latest news about Newquay Zoo plus videos and much more.
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