Text 1: Hosepipe ban as reservoir levels fall, by Tom Crossland

An original contemporary newspaper article.

A hosepipe ban comes into force across the county on Friday after the driest spring and summer in nearly fifty years. The main reservoir serving the area now stands at 31 per cent of capacity, and the water company says it cannot rule out further restrictions if September is dry.

From Friday, households face fines of up to £1,000 for using a hose to water gardens, fill paddling pools or wash cars. Many gardeners have already given up. ‘My lawn is the colour of a digestive biscuit,’ said Pauline Okoye, who now waters her tomatoes with the cold water she runs before a shower. ‘I keep a bucket in the bath.’

Farmers are worse off. Potato grower Simon Beale said his crop would be about a third smaller than usual, and that he had begun feeding winter hay to his cattle in July because the grass had stopped growing.

In the village of Long Ashby, where the natural spring that supplies twenty homes has run dry, the water company is delivering bottled water every other day. Meanwhile, the county fire service has tackled more than 140 grass fires since June, and has asked the public not to light barbecues in parks or on farmland.

Forecasters say there is little sign of significant rain before the end of August.

Text 2: A journal of the dry summer, by Thomas Swithenbank

An original journal written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Text 2 is from the journal of a village schoolmaster in Wiltshire, written during a very dry summer in the 1860s.

July 9th. Still no rain, nor any since the second week of May. The great well at the cross has failed, the first time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and the women of the village must now go down to the river with buckets and yokes, a walk of above a mile each way. Old Lambert, the carrier, fetches water up in barrels and sells it at a halfpenny the bucket, and is much abused for it.

July 20th. Seven of my scholars absent today, all kept at home to fetch water. I cannot find it in me to blame their mothers.

July 26th. The hay is in, but it is not a third of a common crop, and the pastures are as brown as a doormat. The farmers are selling their beasts at Devizes market for what they will fetch, rather than see them starve before the winter. Mr Pocock had but half his usual price for his heifers.

August 2nd. Prayers for rain read in church this morning, the whole congregation joining very heartily.

August 11th. Rain at last, in a great storm of thunder after dinner. The children ran out into it shouting, and I confess I stood at the schoolhouse door with my face turned up like a boy.

Using information from both texts, explain briefly how the dry weather affected people’s lives.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.