大象传媒

In July 1940 when I was 12 I started a part-time job to boost the family鈥檚 weekly earnings. I worked as a delivery boy for my Uncle Tom who was a pork butcher in the Horsefair Kidderminster. Everybody knew him and his shop and his pork pies won top prizes in competitions. He鈥檚 dead now but he had the shop until the 1980鈥檚 never selling anything but pork. He's dead now.

I was the only delivery boy and rode a big heavy bike with a wicker large basket on the front.

Of course everything was rationed at that time. One of my regular deliveries was to the local bakers in Hurcott Road. My uncle would wrap up a ham and say 鈥渨hen you get there give it to him and ask him for 陆 cwt (56lbs) of that indigestion powder that goes in tea鈥� and I would carry it back in my basket. That鈥檚 how he came by a regular supply of sugar during the war. It wasn鈥檛 unusual, there was a lot of bartering went on in those days.

The shop was only open at certain times and local women would form huge queues outside waiting to get a bit of pork, sausages or whatever. Some of them brought in their clothing coupons and had a bit of extra meat in exchange for them and often members of the local constabulary would wait round the back of the shop before it opened for their 鈥榮pecial鈥� orders.

Bacon came in on Tuesday afternoon and was very wet. I had to deliver it immediately before it had time to dry out 鈥� that way it weighed more and he got more money for it. Most of his meat came from his own pigs with he killed them himself, something I never got used to.

One of my jobs was pouring the liquid gelatine into the pork pies. This had to be poured carefully through a small hole in the top of the pie. I was impatient and too mad and quick and was always getting into trouble for messing up the pies.

When I was 14 it became fulltime employment. I hated it and left as soon as I was 16. I went to work at the Co-op Garage in Kidderminster working as a trainee motor mechanic on commercial vehicles bearing in mind that all the best vehicles had been taken by the War Department.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sue Broome of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Ron Jennings and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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