Nobody Grumbled: Surviving the Depression in the Interwar Uplands

Written in the late 1970s, Edith Whetham's Characterization of interwar farming was downcast. She argued that 'much of the country thus continued to be farmed by families chronically in debt without the knowledge or the capital to develop the potential of the land they occupied'. I However, the dominant image of interwar agriculture as one of desperation and gloom has been substantially revised in recent years. Alun Howkins wrote in The Death of Rural England, '[iln marked contrast to the experiences of the east and northeast cereal growing areas the western and even some Midland counties did reasonably well in the inter-war period even if few, especially small farmers, remained untouched by the chill wind of depression.'2 Paul Brassley has also given a more nuanced assessment, recognizing that although 'overall the lean years far outnumbered the fat... the agricultural industry's use of the nation's land, labour and capital resources was not necessarily wasteful or inefficient'. 3 Regional difference is key, and within this assessment the uplands of England have received little scrutiny. My study of Westmorland between 1914 and 1918 showed, unsurprisingly, that livestock farmers failed 'to do well out of the war', but it was those at the highest elevations who actually did best from the higher wartime prices. Having suffered less damage to their infrastructure and less disruption to their operations, they continued to do well after the war due to relatively good returns from sheep during the 1920s' This article will argue however, that as the interwar period progressed, prosperity in the uplands migrated down the fellside.