大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jackie Jude of Chelmsford Library on behalf of Gwen Blott and has been added to the site with her permission.
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Rationing was severe. My parents would not buy black market food although other people did. We were only allowed one egg per person a week. My mother would often use our ration to make a Toad in the Hole and would tell us that that was our egg for the week. She suffered from high blood pressure and was unable to queue but when we were home we would join any queue we saw. I once queued for a long time and came away with half a pound of unripe gooseberries which my mother did not appreciate as we would have had to use our sugar ration to sweeten them.People with medical conditions were given certificates by the doctor which enabled them to have certain extra rations. Because of her high blood pressure my mother was allowed one or two small pieces of fish a week, just enough for one person.

We used to tell each other jokes about food.
" If we only had some eggs we could have bacon and eggs. If we only had some bacon......"

Q: "What will you do if you only have a little milk and a lot of people arrive for tea?"
A: "Take a large flat plate, pour the milk onto it, bring your hand down smartly and everyone gets a bit of it!"

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