In the next episode A new year begins at Hiltonbury Farm…

January 1949 —in My Mothers Diaries
Winter still holds the countryside firmly in its grip, but there is a feeling that something is about to change.

Because in these small, ordinary days —of work, laughter, and winter’s lingering cold —a new year is quietly beginning…and everything that follows… is still to come, listen on Sunday to My Mothers Diaries. Thank you

As November and December 1948 unfold, Hiltonbury Farm turns inward.

The days grow shorter, the air sharper, and attention shifts to keeping both livestock and family safe through the cold. There are frosty mornings, busy kitchens, and preparations for Christmas that sit alongside the ordinary work of the farm.

The final entries of the year carry that gentle mixture of fatigue and gratitude — the feeling of having come through another farming year, with its trials and its blessings, and stepping quietly into 1949.

November 1948…

Rain lashes the fields and the farm turns inward. Pigs are killed for winter meat. Eggs are shown and awarded. Fences are mended. Fires are lit earlier each evening.

There are bonfires and fireworks, Lodge meetings and Growmore dinners — muddy boots by the door and frost waiting at the gate.

Then December arrives with wind and rain, barley threshed in the yard, chickens plucked for Christmas sale, puddings stirred by lamplight while the house fills with callers and laughter.

And as goose is carved and another year draws to its close, there is a quiet awareness beneath it all… that this was a year which began in uncertainty — and somehow, through mud and frost and hard work, has carried the family safely through.

November and December 1948.

The year ending not with silence… but with warmth, resilience, and a farm still standing.

Join me Sunday as we close the book on 1948 at Hiltonbury.