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Trial by Weather

Farmers face off against elemental forces in a peace-time campaign

Documentary 1948 21 mins

Overview

The weather of 1947 threatened food supply while the nation still recovered from war. From the snow bound uplands to the fens plagued by thaw floods, everything seemed lost. But wartime had bred a can-do attitude - with new seed from the empire, equipment from allies, conscripts building barricades and the hardy persistence of the farmers themselves, there’s another victory on the home front.

Made in the mode of wartime propaganda, this film continues the style and approach that the Ministry of Information had perfected in a series of agriculturally focussed films during WWII. Director James Carr would go on to take the production company World Wide Pictures to success as one of the premier British suppliers of government documentaries and industrial films in the postwar period. This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.