大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jonathan Plant of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Peggy and Ian Cleaver and has been added to the site with their pemission. The author fully understands the sites' terms and conditions.

During the war there were many shortages, especially with produce imported from abroad due to enemy attacks on merchant ships. This meant shops were often short of food, some of which was not rationed. For example, my mother recalls there being no bananas.
If there was a delivery of food which was in short supply there would be queues outside the shop as the word got out.
My mother is understandably a little vague about the precise details of how rationing worked in practice over sixty years ago. She thinks that people had seperate ration books for milk, sweets, provisions and dry goods. She thinks these may have been stamped in the shops when you used them. There were points for tinned fruit which were counted off as you used them. People would try and save these points and hope the shop would have what they saved for when they wanted to buy it. My mother distinctly remembers clothing was rationed from 1st June 1941. She can remember this so clearly because her mother had just died and the family had to use their new clothing coupons to buy clothing for the funeral.
At the time (1941) food rationing had already been introduced and she remembers that one of her sisters had given up taking sugar in her tea so that their mother could have her share. The weekly allowence of sugar had to surffice for all the sweetening in tea, coffee and also the household cooking. Apparently, most people in those days used sugar in both tea and coffee.
How rationing worked was that each person had their own ration book, with coupons which had to last a month. If you didn't have a coupon you couldn't buy the particular goods even if you could afford them. If you had the coupon but could not afford to make the purchase, again you could not get the goods. Assuming you had both the sufficient coupons and money, you still had to find it available in the shop. Some scarce items were kept 'under the counter' for regular customers. Most people tended to go to one shop for most of their shopping needs. If that shop did not know you as a regular customer, they would deny having scarce provisions in stock, which they would keep for their regulars. When my mother's mother died the family faced difficulties purchasing food as the she had done all the shopping and was recognised as the regular customer. When my mum's eldest sister took over the shopping chores for the family, using the same shops that her mother had used, she found that she was not recognised as a regular and was unable to purchase any scarce under the counter provisions because they did not know her.
My mother's memory is that basic ingredients were rationed, such as butter (2 ounces per month per person), sugar, cheese (2 ounces), tea (2 ounces), margarine (4 ounces) and lard or cooking fat (2 ounces). The milk entitlement was 1/2 pint each day, but pregnant women could have a pint. She thinks eggs may not have been rationed but were not always available. Dried eggs and dried milk were bought when they were in shops, and used in cooking.
After her mother's death in 1941, my mother had to leave school and work. Her third job was on the grocery counter at the local Co-op. She had to weigh up sugar etc. for customers. It would arrive in sacks and you would sell it by weight, depending on the customer's ration coupons. Tinned and dry goods were also rationed. My mother thinks the ration book had a points strip which would be ripped out once they had been used. You could not carry the points over into the next month if they were not used. Not only did shop staff have to cash up every night, but they also had to count up and reconcile the points they had taken during the day. If they were not used, you lost them. Some older people would give their unused points to shop girls at the end of the month if they knew they would not use them. My mum used these to supplement the family food. Rationing did not end once the war ended, but continued for many years. I was born in 1951 and had a ration book. My younger sister, born in 1954 had a milk ration book, but my mother's memory is that it was not needed. One interesting fact about the war years and the post war years which has topical relevance is that everyone at that time had an identity card. I don't know when they ceased being a requirement, but I still have my old one. It had to be stamped with each change of address as you moved.

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