´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Janet Miller, volunteer at Shropshire Record Office, on behalf of Mrs Margaret Walton, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Story title: The Home Front Project in Shropshire

Names of people in story: H Margaret Walton

I came to Shropshire in 1951 after teaching in Bedfordshire and was appointed to the Home Front Project. This was a Government project to get people working in the home, doing housecraft subjects. The WIs played a large part in this and the WI in Shropshire was very active. I went round giving demonstrations, such as easily made handbags and shopping bags. The WIs would request a demonstrator. If it was a cookery demo, I would have to take an oil stove with me in the back of my Austin 7 and I covered the whole of Shropshire. There were two of us and the other girl was a cookery specialist. I did mostly the dressmaking and crafts. In Bedfordshire I did canning, for which I also had to take a canning machine along. Our slogan was ‘Eat what you can. Can what you can’t’. We canned plums and anything suitable for school dinners was used as such. There was less canning in Shropshire and more craft work. We taught glove making from pieces of chamois, which saved on clothing coupons.

The blackout made travelling difficult at times but and I got to know the countryside very well in my Austin 7. It was the ‘Ruby’ model and cost £45, including a new battery! I could get from Shrewsbury to London on a full tank with my petrol coupons allocation.

To be continued

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.