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"Everything was in short supply. Rationing went on right up to 1953 — long after the war ended. But we were very lucky during the war, providing the ships could get through, with the u-boats et cetera in the Atlantic. We used to get a parcel from our relatives in America. There would be all sorts of things in that, which was very, very useful. They used to send tinned goods, rice, tapioca, dried beans, all those things like that. Fresh meat got down to about two pennyworth, which was well nothing really. For one person, it was hardly worth cooking. We got by, we got by. We were very fortunate that we knew somebody who used to shoot wild rabbits. I used to take it to my mother and she would cook it, and the children thought it was chicken, because my eldest, Keith, he would have, well he wouldn’t have anything to do with rabbits, he thought they were pets. He used to get so excited when we had chicken, as he thought it was, and I remember he ran out into the garden and said “Oh, we’re lucky, we’ve got two chickens today”, which of course it wasn’t two chickens it was one rabbit with four legs [laughs], oh dear."

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