大象传媒

We were luckier than many during the war, ironically because of my husband injuring himself before hand. An injury caused at work ruled him unsuitable for war service, allowing him to stay at home and work bringing in a wage, while I could stay at home with our baby. This allowed us to survive financially a lot better than many people we knew, allowing us a few extras on top of rations.

I had to take my baby to the Lowesmoor clinic every week to be weighed and collect rations of cod liver oil and concentrated orange juice (for rickets) plus tins of national dried milk. This was the easy part, however as the rest of our rations came from the city centre and required a lot of patience and queuing. We had to queue regularly for over an hour to pick up our rations of meat and fish. Cod would arrive at the fishmongers in the Shambles in a box and was cut up into chunks and was charged at 1/- for 1lb. Nothing was filleted but the heads and tails were cut off for those that had a cat. Of course when it was all gone you accepted it.

It was the same for meat rations as well. The butcher, again in the Shambles, would often put cuts of meat under the counter for his favourite customers. Meat was a real luxury at this time so we ate mainly spam, sausages (though who wanted to guess what was in them) and scrag ends at home. What I hated most was only having 2 oz of cheese a week, but we managed, there was no choice.

Every weekend the family would take a country bus out to my Aunts farm near Ledbury in Herefordshire and would usually come back with some extras, including bacon, eggs and vegetables. This was a real bonus.

I was also lucky when it came to clothing rations. Because I was so small I could fit into junior sizes. This would save me at least 12 coupons a year.

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