大象传媒

We are asked, these days, to recycle everything. The council even provide containers to take care of unwanted goods. During the war, when most things were on rations and money scare, we were not asked to recycle we did it for our own good. Clothing and bedding could only be obtained by using coupons, the war, with all its shortages, had been going on for four and a half years, so make do and mend became the order of the day. In the spring of 1944 I realized that I was pregnant with my first child. A friend gave me a second hand wicker basket cot but, I had to trim it and get bedding for it.
First of all it needed a mattress. I lived, then, in rural Lincolnshire and we used to get flour delivered in strong cotton bags, these we washed and boiled to bleach the writing on them, they were then used for many purposes. I was told that in the old days oat chaff (which was a leftover from when the oats were threshed) was used, as a filling, safe for babies to lie on and easily emptied and replaced if soiled. Sheets and blankets were obtained from the best parts of old bed linen. For the eiderdown I gathered bits of fleece that the sheep had left on hedges and barbed wire as they had passed by. When this had been cleared of any foreign objects and well washed it was filled into another linen bag and made a soft, snug eiderdown. The cover was made from the skirt of an old dance frock. Butter muslin was not on rations so I obtained some of this to make a lining for the cot. So except for the lining all of it was RECYCLED.

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