大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lisa Barker on behalf of Mary Durkin and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I can remember going to the Co-op when we lived at Botcherby. Mam would have about seven ration books at the time. We鈥檇 go into the Co-op once a week for our groceries. As there were so many of us, when mam got her butter, she鈥檇 get a big lump of butter. When she got her ration of cheese, it was a big slab of cheese, which raised a few eyebrows amongst the other shoppers.

In the ration book there was four Ds, and four Es, which represented different quantities of sweets. When we lived at Botcherby, we would walk over the long footpath to a sweetshop on the corner of Greystone and Melbourne Road. We were always in next month鈥檚 coupons. If we could have went into the month after that, we probably would have!

A couple of families would get a set of sheets, or big fluffy blankets. These were expensive items and they would pay weekly for them, only to sell them to my Grandma for half price, so that they could have the money straight away.

We would receive packages from countries like Canada. These would be distributed at school, and everyone would be given a box. I remember we received a couple of parcels. On one occasion, one of the packs contained drinking chocolate or cocoa. It was lovely and sweet. I don鈥檛 remember actually drinking it, but I was dipping my finger in the chocolate all the way home.

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