大象传媒

It was February 1944 and I was nearly six. I had been looking forward to my birthday ever since the Christmas decorations had come down. I began to tell my mother who I would invite to my party.

"I'm sorry my love," she said, "but I'm afraid you can't have a party this year, there just isn't enough food." At that moment my Nan came into the kitchen. "You want a party my love?" she said, "then you will have one. Nan will fix it for you."

"But Mum," said my mum to her mum. "We haven't got any marge to spare and the Co-op hasn't had eggs for weeks."

"We'll manage," said my Nan and she turned to me. "Nan will make you a cake with six pink candles, and we'll have red and green jelly too," she promised rashly. "But Mum..." cried my Mum.

I arrived back from school the next afternoon to be greeted by thumps and crashes from the kitchen. My mother was vigorously attacking something in a brown paper bag with a rolling pin. She had filled the bag with a week's ration of ordinary granulated sugar, and was pounding it into icing sugar.

My Nan had managed to get two bottles of pop, one red, one green, and she was dissolving a slab of yellowish gelatine into a pan of hot water. She was making fizzy jelly! The smell was not promising. On the kitchen table were six pink candles made from gas tapers cut into three-inch lengths and with the wax scraped off to form wicks. She had dyed them pink with cochineal. And she had squandered two ounces of margarine to make an eggless sponge cake, stuck together with the universal "plum" jam.

The following day was the 1st of March at last. The day of my party. Not only the cake resplendent on a silver cake stand and arranged on a home-made doily, and the fizzy jelly which smelled and tasted a lot better once it was set, but a few jam tarts made with a sliver of margarine left over from the cake, and chocolate spread sandwiches as well. And of course that stalwart of all parties at that time, a pink blancmange. She must have used a week's supply of rations for five people for that party.

Soon five well-behaved little girls arrived, each bearing a present, or a shilling, or maybe a sixpence, and a home-made card. We played blind man's bluff, and musical chairs with my mother at the piano, and we ate every scrap of the feast my Nan and Mum had so lovingly prepared.

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