You may be wondering what a bomb has to do with the story of community gardens, but in fact it has many links.
It starts by taking us through both the First and Second World Wars, when food was scarce and rationed and plots of abandoned land saw themselves dug up and converted to communal growing plots. And it also touches on the "Dig For Victory" scheme, which began in October 1939 and aimed to use every piece of land they could find for growing food, even along the railway lines, on rooftops, and in Hyde Park, with the Royal Palaces joining in and digging up lawns for vegetable beds. More than that, some sites were dedicated to growing herbs to replace medicines we could no longer import from overseas.
Several of the earliest community gardens were planted on land that had seen its former housing destroyed by bombing raids. Two of the best known of these are in Hammersmith, one at Loris Road, and one at Godolphin Road, both of which are thriving today. In fact the one at Loris Road is regarded to be the first ever modern Community Garden.
Before we close, if you have ever driven up a motorway and seen sections of wildflowers along the edges and in the middle of the carriageway, and wondered how they got there, they too owe their existence to bombs, but of a friendly kind, round balls of soil mixed with seeds, which have been hurled into place through an open car window. In fact this idea of revolutionary gardening all started in New York in the 1970s, when a group of people, who became known as The Green Guerillas, simply wanted to improve a vacant area but were not allowed to access it. However, instead of walking away, they fought back, and made light packages of seeds with dirt and fertiliser, simply throwing them over the fence where the miracle of nature did its work. And if you want to carry on their work you will find many recipes online, though I feel honour-bound to cite Natures Path.
As for our set, I may change this card because the black edge does not show up very well on this black background. It first appears in our original British American Tobacco reference book (RB.21, issued in 1952), the front index of which tells us the date and the country of issue, and gives it a code, for where it appears later in the book under "Other South African Issues", There it is catalogued as :
412. SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE. Small cards, size 67 x 43 m/m. Front in colour. Back in black, in English and Afrikaans, with announcement that album can be obtained: printer`s credit "Hortors Limited" at base. Numbered series of 100. Anonymous issue, with letterpress on back.
It is quite hard to find the set in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, but it is right at the back, in the "Z" codes, under section 2 of the "Anonymous Issues (1) - With Letterpress on back", and subsection 3, "Bi-Lingual Issues - 3.A "English/Afrikaans", where the entry reads :
SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE. Sm. size 67 x 43. Nd. (100), See RB.21/412. m/m. Special album issued, inscribed with U.T.C., Westminster, and Policansky Bros. names ... ZC1-8
This text is identical in our updated version, but there is a new code, of ZC01-700.