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THREAD! From the cover The Countryman's Diary 1939 looks unremarkable. However if you look inside...you will find instructions on how to cut off someone's head with a garrotte and how to use explosives. The cover disguised its contents as the training manual for...
The Auxiliary Unit - the unassuming name given to the secret army that were to lead the resistance if Hitler invaded. Led by the wonderfully named Colonel Gubbins he recruited 'people intimately familiar with the countryside' - farmers and gamekeepers. Check out Gubbins medals!
But back to the diary. What I love about it is that the ad for Highworth Fertilisers is a very clever joke. A joke that connects it to this small post office in Berkshire and specifically the remarkable women on the second left Mabel Stranks.
The joke is... Highworth was the HQ of the Auxillary Unit the place that the farmers turned soldiers were trained in the art of guerrilla warfare including bomb making. The principle ingredients of those bombs being fertiliser. 'Highworth Fertilisers - do their stuff unseen'
But how does this connect to Mabel Stranks? The HQ was in a nearby country house. To keep its location secret the farmers had to first report to Mabel's post office. If they gave her the correct password she would phone the house and they would come and collect them.
Near me in Eastbourne was a unique Aux Unit made up not of farmers but brewers! Four staff of the Star Brewery were recruited. They were given revolvers, explosives and kept a radio transceiver hidden in a secret compartment in the brewery water tower
But the most remarkable thing about the Aux Unit? You can still find the underground bunkers they built. I have visited two near me. Sadly like much of the WW2 architecture in the UK they are in great disrepair. Surely it is time we started to preserve all our amazing WW2 sites?
