大象传媒

David Frostick recalls how his family supplemented their rations.

Rations
All food was rationed including sweets and clothes. As an example we were allowed 2 ozs of sweets a week, this represented about six sweets or six squares of chocolate. That was, if you could find a shop that had sweets. Even rationed, they were a luxury. Each person was registered and had a ration book.
As we lived in the country, we could supplement our diet. We kept chickens and sometimes rabbits for meat. We also ate the fish that we caught in the river.
The chickens were free range and were fed also with scraps of food left over from our meals, nothing was wasted, even the potato peelings and any of the waste that was left over when the vegetables were prepared, was boiled up and used for chicken feed. The chickens laid their eggs in the hen house, where they were shut up at night to protect them from the foxes. They also laid eggs in the hedgerows of our garden when they were broody and if left, they would sit on them for about three weeks and hatch out the eggs into little chicks. When we were aware that a hen was doing this, she was put into a special little hutch so that she could be looked after safely, until the chicks hatched.

There were wild birds who laid eggs too; they were the Moorhen and the Pigeon. The eggs from both of these birds could be eaten provided they were fresh. A Pigeon usually laid two eggs. If you found a nest with one egg it was usually fresh and we would take it, as the Pigeon would lay others.

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