大象传媒

DISCLAIMER:
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Betty Harris and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

鈥淢y name is Betty Harris and towards the end of the war I was working for the Ministry of Food in an information centre at the bottom of Park Street, Bristol. There were six of us there all qualified domestic science teachers, of the six; one was Scottish, one Irish and the rest of us English. The object of the centre was to help the public learn how to use its food to the best advantage.
On Monday mornings the supervisor came down and the week鈥檚 work was arranged. In turn we would give demonstrations in the centre using the Ministry of Food leaflets as guides. I remember, for example, a good mix of people coming in. On one occasion a rather agitated man came in asking for a recipe for plum jam with stones in! Another time a worried woman explained that she had managed to put down a few eggs in water glass [a viscous syrupy preservative], but for how long would it be necessary for them to remain there before they were fit to use. Possibly the saddest case was a woman who came in, she had used possibly four or five Seville oranges, acquired as a great treat, to make marmalade, but instead of putting sugar into the mixture she had dropped in a bar of salt. Was it possible to get the salt out? We were very sorry 鈥� it was not possible.
Because I had the additional qualification as a dietician, which I had gained at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, I was often sent out to speak at various meetings, later on to groups of ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Force] and WAAF [Women鈥檚 Auxiliary Air Force], who before too long would be demobbed. You had to be prepared for absolutely anything. I remember being sent to a women鈥檚 meeting somewhere in the country where the only method of cooking was on an oil stove, during the afternoon, with something already cooking on top, the oil stove collapsed on us; it was quite exciting.
Visiting the ATS and WAAF was very interesting, but I remember I looked at these groups of women, anything up to three hundred of them, and my chief impression of them was how well fed they were, almost bursting from their uniforms. I expect they were not so well fed in one sense, probably they鈥檇 had a great deal of carbohydrate, but at that point I was getting thinner and thinner, so this impressed me, but this type of work was not easy, it was very demanding.
On one occasion I gave the first of three talks, to possibly a couple of hundred ATS; fine. It seemed to be going well but when I went again a week later to do the second of the three talks, it seemed to me something was rather different, I didn鈥檛 know what, but I asked, 鈥楬ad anything changed?鈥� 鈥極h yes.鈥� A third of them had been sent somewhere else, so you had two-thirds there that you had talked to before, and one-third you hadn鈥檛. Hasty revision, how on earth was I going to keep them interested and at the same time include for the newcomers some of the things discussed last week. Well, with a struggle, I managed it. Week three later, oh yes, you can imagine, the same thing had happened, so I had to cope with people who鈥檇 heard me once, people who鈥檇 heard me twice, and people who鈥檇 never heard me at all; it was a very good experience.
Occasionally we had to visit factories and compete with the music-while-you-work sessions. I remember trying to speak once, but when the music was turned off there was a howl of, 鈥業f we can鈥檛 have that, now you entertain us.鈥� which was rather daunting.
I remember going with another of the team to a demonstration in Weston-super-Mare, where I assumed that a microphone was arranged, but we found we were demonstrating in a shop window; if you looked up you saw the world looking in at you.
There were all the Ministry of Food leaflets, dozens of them, how to use dried egg, etc., and there were all those posters, Potato Pete, all that kind of thing [Doctor Carrot and Potato Pete were propaganda figures created to encourage people to use the available vegetables] and posters, which I made myself. In the Housewife magazine a chocolate spread made with cocoa and mashed potato was suggested and there was a thing called 鈥楳ock Goose鈥� - mock everything, mainly made with different flavoured stuffing.
But there wasn鈥檛 enough protein really; the meat ration was small. And cheese, married women would tend to give the cheese to their husbands, and you really had to say to them, 鈥榊ou know, you shouldn鈥檛 really do this.鈥� 鈥榊ou need it鈥�. You went down to the Food Offices in turn in Bristol, because the mothers came to the Food Offices to collect the cod liver oil and orange juice, and while you were there you tried to interest them in all these things. 鈥業 wonder if this would help you?鈥� and so on. We didn鈥檛 care for that duty much, but we did it in turns.
I was at a very peculiar boarding house in Bristol at that time where the food wasn鈥檛 very good. There were two or three elderly ladies there who all had cups of tea mid-morning and again at teatime, finishing, I think, at five, and of course these dear old souls were drinking up our milk ration. A bell was rung for supper and on one occasion I remember waiting for such a long time for the bell to ring, and when eventually we all went down, we found on each plate a ghastly tinned pilchard in tomato sauce, they looked so cold and unwelcoming. I used to go home for weekends and that kept me going for food
My father had a farm on the Brendons at that time and used to get extra [rations]. They had rabbits at home, which they bred with, there was one poor rabbit that produced seventeen baby rabbits, and can you imagine that! It was rather sad to see these rabbits and then to eat them.
Father got the butter, eggs and vegetables from the farm. There was an elderly friend of my mother鈥檚, who was a bit much in a way, she would appear with a bag of scraps and expect several eggs in return, that kind of thing. There was another woman in the village that would appear with a quarter of margarine and expect a cake. My mother was always too kind.
Father kept bees and he鈥檇 got sacks of bee-sugar in store, which was helpful when it came to bottling fruit. Lots of bottling was done, especially bottling plums. My mother used to give the [domestic] help, who came every morning in those days, a bottle of fruit every now and then. When bottles were getting short, I suppose my mother ask her to return the empties, she said, 鈥榶ou bring them back鈥�. Oh! She鈥檇 put them out, never thought that they鈥檇 be needed again - Kilner jars! So we hadn鈥檛 any then, which was a pity. And she鈥檇 be given a pack of sugar every now and then; she didn鈥檛 do too badly! Of course I didn鈥檛 know all this till the end of the war when I鈥檇 come home. About a year and a half later I went back to do a little work but not much, the job was coming to an end. I was paid two guineas and expenses for giving a lecture; it was good money at that time.鈥�

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