Land Girls

Hubby and I started watching the BBC program Land Girls on NetFlix, which lends itself to binge watching.  The show is the television equivalent of potato chips.  You can't watch just one, but it is as intellectually satisfying as chips are nutritional.  It's quite the soap opera, with cliff hangers, one-dimensional characters (especially the villains), artificial conflict, and problems and characters that go away when the plot no longer needs them.  The Americans are the particular bad guys, despite the historical proof that the Americans were pretty good to the British locals.  The story between the lord of the manor and the land girl with an Italian background was about stupid.  But I do like the scenery and periodness (although their clothes look way too good considering what the Brits had been through by then and the land girls hardly ever actually work), and I like some of the characters.

A friend's mother, they found out later in life, was a land girl in England during the War.  It is interesting how my parents' generation rarely told us baby boomers the full extent of what they have lived through.  Far more interesting than movies, I would say.  My friend didn't know about her mother-in-law until they were attending a WWII re-enactment a few years back in Pennsylvania and the mother, about 90, announced it, and she was surrounded by re-enactors in their outfits who were listening to her stories. 

I was able to combine a trip to Washington, D.C, for a conference this week with a trip to Annapolis to see my brother and his wife and daughter.  We reminisced about essentially the same thing:  our mother's exploits that she never talked about until late in life.  She was in her seventies before she told me she worked in an armaments plant.  My brother told a story about her losing a young friend as a child who was burned up in a corn field that caught fire.  She never talked about her stepfather, who went to prison for killing his girlfriend (while still married to my grandmother).  There was more. 

These people are quickly dying off, and we must get them on tape.  I have some of my mother and grandmother on film, but not enough, not as much as I like.

Back to the TV show.  I am half-way through the second season, and will probably watch the rest just because I like to finish what I started.  But Foyle's War is a much better depiction of the era. 

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