Shades of Dunkirk, the race for the Channel Ports: No it’s not 1940.It's Icelandic volcano ash and our Dig For Victory garden at Newquay Zoo

Two of our resourceful zoo managers have just made it back from a European zoo meeting in Hungary as there were no flights to be had in the last few days. (Another keeper's planned trip to our BIAZA rainforest reserve project in Brazil didn't even leave Britain). The Prime Minister ordered British subjects to make their way to the Channel Ports, on the expectation that the Navy or others would somehow get them back to Blighty.Over the last few days one could almost believe that Dunkirk and the fall of the Channel ports in May and June 1940 was being recreated as part of the 70th anniversary. Maybe I've spent too much time in the wartime garden and the 1940s preparing our displays for our World War Zoo gardens event at Newquay Zoo on 1 to 3 May 2010.
This event marks the 70th anniversary of the events of 1940, rationing, dig for victory (or dear life as some wartime wags put it) and the happier 65th anniversary of VE and VJ day in May and August 1945. Street parties, Spam fritters and the like.
I eagerly awaited a call from the PM on national radio for the owners of 'small ships' to make their way to France and bring back as many as they could. Once the channel ports had fallen, U boats and bombers attempted unrestricted blockade and blitz of Britain. Goodbye easy food imports and luxury goods for the duration. Hello rationing, recycling, gardening (and spivs with suitcases on the black market). I wonder if any of our wartime suitcase 'display cases' of wartime objects that didn't go through the Battle Of Britain with WAAFs or accompanied evacuees might have belonged to the Private Walkers of the time, full of the Nylons and hard to get items of the time. (We've got some of these luxuries in our wartime collection to show you, no coupons or qusetions asked).

Caption for our photo: Today's headlines are recycled into tomorrow's plant pots while yesterday's Dig for Victory posters and civil defence helmets look on. The fabulous Paper Potters and a successful potting up of sunflowers in practice for visitors to try out at our wartime gardening event 1 to 3 May 2010. Note the vintage fuel can as a reminder of fuel rationing and the modern BBC Dig In campaign leaflet! Paper potters in FSC wood are available singly or in sets from www.henandhammock.co.uk and http://www.mithus.co.uk/

Hard to get items in Britain and Europe the last few days include flights, ferry tickets, coach seats and even hire cars. The last few days of Volcanic ash from Iceland might have cleared international air space but they've probably made many people realise how dependent we have become on flying for holidays, business and international trade with a knock on and backlog in many countries and food producers around the world. It also makes you realise the appalling conditions that wartime pilots had to fly in with subsequent losses. We have in our archive a flight dairy of a (bored) flight mechanic in RAF Reykjavik in Iceland, servicing planes which didn't quite make it over from Canada and America in one piece. Some of these were Liberator bombers.
One of these US planes tragically crashed near Newquay at Watergate Bay on 28 December 1943 with complete loss of life. Relics of this plane and other local stories will be on display at the zoo on our wartime weekend, thanks to Newquay wartime schoolboy Douglas Knight who salvaged some of these relics along with some very impressive shrapnel from the zoo valley at the time.

(above left) Pictured: St George and the wartime dragon, ready for St. George's day this week - striking Battle of Britain imagery from Carmen Blacker and Joan Pring's wartime design for Newquay War Weapons Week, whilst evacuated with Benenden school to Newquay. Copyright Newquay Zoo

We'll also have some memories and photos of Benenden girls from that famous school in Kent evacuated to the Hotel Bristol from June 1940 to December 1945, to accompany the Newquay War Weapons Week salvage and savings poster designed by two sadly now passed away Benenden Girls Carmen Blacker and Joan Pring. Photos show the girls doing voluntary agricultural work around the Zoo valley area in the 1940s.

Planthunters trail launched

We'll also be highlighting the daring exploits of plant hunters including Frank Kingdon-Ward, employed secretly during the war to map jungle scape routes, teach survival skills and find crashed aircraft in the jungles of Burma and South east Asia.
A pilot's silk scarf escape map of these jungles will be on display to illustrate this strange tale.
Silk stockings and scarves aren't needed to visit the zoo but you could dress to impress in 1940s style to visit us on 1 to 3 May 2010 http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/ http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/.

We'd love to see you ... you can take way your little pot of a wildlife gardening sunflower as part of 2010 Biodiversity Year as well and a few wartime recipes.
Cheerio and TTFN!
Until We'll Meet Again ...
Mark Norris , mark.norris@newquayzoo.org.uk
World War Zoo gardens project team

The popularity of carrot cake and baked potatoes in the Newquay Zoo cafe are only two of our wartime legacies from rationing.

The 70th anniversary of wartime rationing of food in Britain takes place this year, something which was to dominate the British household for the next 14 years from bacon, ham , sugar and butter going on ration on 8 January 1940 until the last item – meat – came off ration in June 1954.
Find out more about rationing, wartime cookery and gardening and about our wartime garden event on 1 to 3 May 2010 and our wartime collection at our main blog site http://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com

and don't forget the new Ministry of Food exhibition http://www.food.iwm.org.uk

Wartime handmade sliding puzzle from the World war Zoo gardens collection included online in the BBC A History of the World series digital museum

Look for the object that almost made it into the list (we could only choose one and the Spitfire didn't make it!) see both or contact us at http://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/

Our next World War Zoo wartime garden weekend is at Newquay Zoo 1 to 3 May 2010 http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/ events and what's on.

Happy digging!

World War Zoo Gardens blog

What is World War Zoo?

‘World War Zoo’ is the public part of a wider research project begun at Newquay Zoo www.newquayzoo.org.uk on how zoos, aquariums and botanic gardens survived World War Two (1939-1945). It's also a recreated wartime garden and a growing archive on wartime life (with some everyday materails shown above).

Our next wartime garden weekend will be 1- 3 May 2010 - see events, directions and entry prices on www.newquayzoo.org.uk

World War Zoo is about looking back and looking forward, learning from the past to prepare for our future.




Have sandbags, will blog.
World War Zoo being essentially a past, present and future project, looking both back and forward, it was appropriate to use IT, social networking and new media for communication and messaging.





The story so far ...
Up to date project information with regularly monthly entries has been uploaded since Summer 2009 on our other blog site http://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/.





Twitter entries twittered about the minor tragedy of frost hit salad,


a Facebook profile worldwarzoogardener created in winter 2009 now has a mixed following of zoo, garden and 1940s re-enactor enthusiasts. Even salad needs friends and followers.

a Flickr photostream


RHS blog / forum discussions about recycled planters made out of loo rolls have brought the World War Zoo project to a wider audience than might or can visit the zoo.



We're now preparing the planting plans for 2010.

Our archive of wartime gardening advice suggests that Janauary is a quiet time in the garden. Like all gardeners, the time and resources spent planning and preparing especially in quieter winter periods is returned fruitfully in the form of potentially increased visitor numbers to the zoo and its wartime garden events in spring and summer. A bit more colour and a few more wartime varieties are planned ...





Have gasmask, will visit zoo!
A 'wartime' visit is common for heritage sites but not for zoos or botanic gardens. The success of World War Zoo is partly its 'under the radar' way of looking at sustainability, recycling, food waste and 'grow your own' with public and general visitors.





Teaching the home front in World War Two?
We met lots of children at the garden launch in August 2009 who 'done the war' (tick).
With schools these topics can be introduced in a cross-curricular way, initially through the history curriculum, but embracing citizenship, sustainability (ESD) and science. Animal camouflage and plant defence can be introduced from a new angle. It values our zoos and botanic gardens as a social history or cultural resource.

The history curriculum links on wartime life for schools are well established in the UK at primary and secondary level with the project building towards outreach or offering a whole or part of a school visit to the zoo. It also links to many UK government education vocational learning initiatives.

We hope that staff, schools and families will feel inspired to go off and do the same things at school or home. There are more links on our wordpress.com blog site.

Give Peas a Chance ...
The experience of wartime for zoo keepers, their family and zoo visitors has much in common across many nations.
World War Zoo as a project is not a glorification of Allied victory in war. Our focus and touchstone is on the home front and civilian / non-military aspects, especially in the resources and re-enactors chosen. So no tanks on the lawn, no rifles and no weekend SS divisions ...

The Imperial War Museum in London has photographs of strange European zoo uses in their image collection www.iwm.org.uk and a new Ministry of Food exhibition for 2010 /11 http://food.iwm.org.uk updating their victory garden collaboration with the Royal Parks in 2007, with a Dig for Victory Garden in St. James Park / Imperial War Museum (2007) website http://dig-for-victory.blogspot.com/



World War Zoo

It's recession friendly, thrifty and fashionable again to 'grow your own' and 'make do and mend'. It's sustainability and recycling but with an evocative Vera Lynn 1940s soundtrack.

We'd love to hear from you

Did you or your family work in or visit zoos during wartime?

Are you or friends teaching the subject in schools?

Are you a gardener or a 1940s re-enactor?

We'd love to hear from you.

You can contact the World War Zoo project via mark.norris@newquayzoo.org.uk or its facebook page.