The Grass Widow and the Cow

The last thing that Barbara Paynter's husband said to her as he boarded a train to Paddington in August 1939 was "get a farm going, darling".That is precisely what she did. This is the remarkable true story, based on the letters written to her husband stationed in the Middle East, of a young woman who knew nothing about farms or animals, but who determinedly "did her bit" for the war effort by turning her well-ordered home into a farm. In this she was aided by her handyman and housekeeper and egged on by her children.She soon learned the mysteries of farming, becoming intimately acquainted with brown leghorns, Rhode Island reds, sex-linked pullets, transporting pigs in the back of a 1933 Ford Eight, Jersey cows and their ways, ducks that refuse to leave the kitchen and geese that ate the herbaceous borders.This is a unique insight into the dramatic changes to one woman's lifestyle in wartime, written with great humour, optimism and plenty of practical advice.