When one thinks of farms nestled in the idyllic English countryside in the 1940s, a police shootout probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

While researching my recent WWII novel, The Land Girl on Lily Road, I read about the death of George “Ray” Walden, a 65-year-old farmer in the village of Itchen Stoke and Ovington, Hampshire, just northeast of Southampton and Plymouth. I briefly mentioned Walden’s story in the book as well.

Like many farmers of his generation and many before and after him, Ray Walden wasn’t accustomed to being told how to run his farm by a bunch of suits from the city. These well-intentioned officials were from the War Agricultural Executive Committee (or “War Ag” for short). Representatives chosen for these committees sometimes had farming experience but mostly didn’t.

The goal of these committees was to make sure all available farm land was used as efficiently as possible. Having dealt with a food shortage during the First World War and knowing the UK was highly dependent on imports, the British government was much more prepared and willing to put standards in place for farms around the country. Because there was a war on and citizens needed to be fed, these standards had to be met or else part or the entirety of a farm could be seized by the government and given to another farmer. Sometimes this land even ended up in the hands of relatives of War Ag committee members.

Needless to say, members of the War Ag committees were oftentimes not the most popular people in the village.

All episodes of BBC’s wonderful Wartime Farm series are available on YouTube. Highly recommend.

Sometimes War Ag officials would instruct farmers to use fields for crops the farmer had never grown before and weren’t knowledgeable about. As was the case in The Land Girl on Lily Road, sheep farmers were told to switch their operations to dairy cows. Beef became a rare and precious commodity in Britain during WWII because it was much more efficient to use grazing land for growing cereal crops than to feed beef cattle.

There is a scene in my novel where a representative from the War Ag visits the farm to give the farm a ranking on things like land use and efficiency. They might also make suggestions how unused bits of land around the farm could be used for major crops or even a personal vegetable patch. There were even limits to how much farmland could be dedicated to the growing of decorative flowers.

The work of the War Agricultural Executive Committee was incredibly important and successful. Starvation wasn’t an issue in Britain during the war and with the help of these War Ags, 1.7 million additional acres were put in use for growing crops that help to feed the nation when getting imports was nearly impossible. However, it’s not hard to guess how some farmers might feel about these officials, telling them what to do with their own land.

The son of a farmer of the same leased land before him, Ray Walden was unmarried, known locally as a calm and quiet man, was generally healthy, and was not a fan of the War Ag, especially after he was served with an order to vacate Borough Farm in the spring of 1940 in response to his refusal to plough additional land on the property. He refused requests to increase his yields multiple times before he was told he would be forcibly evicted from the property if he didn’t comply.

Village of Itchen Stoke

At 11:30 am on July 22, 1940, police arrived at Borough Farm to remove Walden from the premises and found the doors to his home locked—not just locked, but barricaded. And Walden was armed.

One of the police constables was shot multiple times with pellets, beginning an 18-hour siege involving multiple gunshot wounds, multiple police, and one fatality. Four other police officers were shot before they forced their way into Walden’s home, finding him on the floor with a gunshot wound to the head. (The evidence doesn’t suggest it was self-inflicted, but a gunshot from one of the police.) Ray Walden was taken into custody and died at Royal Hampshire County Hospital at Winchester on the evening of July 23.

The incident was covered in newspapers across England and served as a warning to the War Ag and to farmers alike—it showed that tensions ran high and it was best to do as you were asked or your property could be lost. Or worse.

There are many unfortunate stories of lives lost in Britain during the Second World War. This story is unique among them because the parties involved were all English and not some faceless enemy across the sea.

Top image: care of the Museum of Rural English Life

Read more:

• Death of a farmer: the fortunes of war and the strange case of Ray Walden by Brian Short
• The Itchen Stoke Shooting