大象传媒

Just before the war began we were issued with identity cards and ration books,and when the war began the ration of each article was announced,to obtain more butter and fats I became a vegetarian in name only to enlarge the butter ration to the family.
Fish was not rationed but not all that easy to come by so the government tried to make friday a fish eating day.
Vegetables were not rationed and the supply of these was eased by many people digging up their back gardens to grow vegetables and the government commenced digging up parks etc and issuing allotments of these parks to many people so that they could grow food for themselves.
many special recepies were invented by the government and 'potato pete' became a special 'friend'.
Eggs were severely rationed and many people commenced keeping some chickens in their back gardens and friends kept their waste part of vegetables to help their friends and in return received eggs.
During the middle part of the war powdered egg began to arrive from america which made very good omellets and scrambled egg as well as for cooking.
As I mentioned earlier fat of all types was severely rationed so it was difficult to make cakes etc but some bright spark found that if you used medicinal paraffin oil in limited quantities it made very nice sponge cakes,but this joy did not last for long and peppermint was soon added to the oil so it became impossible to make these sponge cakes
If you had money you could supplement your rations by eating in a British Restaurant and a two course meal would cost about 1 shilling and sixpence (about 7 1/2 p in todays money) but this meal generally consisted of mince with vegetables or the mince was a sausage (less than 40% meat) or fish.
Being a school boy I used to have a mid day meal at school and when one looks back on them they were very good, with meat plenty of vegetables and a hot pudding to follow and these meals of course helped the family rations at home.
During the school holidays we were paid to work on the local farms or nurseries and for this we received about 3 shillings and sixpence per week for back breaking work not only this ,but if you were 14 or fiteen years of age you joined an Air Training Corp or army or navy corp at school or locallly and received training for when you would be called up for the services.
In addition to these activities in the spring many schools arranged groups to pick rose hips for making into syrup by various companies,this syrup was for the very young children to give them vital vitamins but the rest of us received a half pint of milk at school per day which was free ,this milk was under the control of the form master who appointed a milk monitor from one of the pupils in his class.
For all this ,it is strange to think that bread and vegetables were not rationed until AFTER the war.

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