My father was President of the Fareham & Hants Farmers' Club and this is the cover of the programme for its annual dinner in February 1946. The illustration of "The dawn of Peace time Farming" shows the urgent business at hand for those assembled and Tom Williams, the first post-war Minister of Agriculture himself was attending. Here is the inside of the programme with what looks like a second Christmas meal on offer!
My father was also a member of the Hampshire War Agricultural Executive Committee. These county committees were tasked with increasing agricultural production and could decide, on a farmer's behalf, which crops should be planted in which fields, so as to best increase the production of foodstuffs in their areas. The Committee's contribution to feeding the nation was marked in this certificate signed by Robert Hudson, the wartime Minister for Agriculture & Fisheries.
In 1947 my father was elected Chairman of the HWAEC and spoke of difficult work ahead as rationing persisted and the need for farmers to grow more food remained an urgent one.
In 1939 when the Warnford herd of pigs was at its largest with almost 8,000 animals, my father was elected to the Pigs Marketing Board in what looks like rather lively circumstances. The following paper is an endorsement of my father's candidature by two branches of the National Farmers' Union in Yorkshire. They describe my father as "having a wide and successful business experience behind him and his outlook on the Pigs Marketing Scheme is similar to ours in the North"!
In 1948 my father was elected President of the National Pig Breeders' Association which held its annual lunch at the Connaught Rooms in April of that year. The Rt Hon Tom Williams was once again guest of honour. On a culinary side-note, Escoffier's recipe for sauce "Joinville" includes fish veloute, eggs and cream as well as both shrimp and crayfish butters!
I have just come across the following letter from Tom Williams. It would appear that he had to miss his February 1946 turkey dinner with the Fareham & Hants Farmers' Club and sent his Parliamentary Secretary Lord Huntingdon to do the honours in his place!
The following cutting from 1948 (source unknown) references my father between the (at that time) ex-PM and ex-Minister of Agriculture!
