大象传媒

With all the hardships of World War Two came rationing. As Britain depended on importing so many goods from overseas, demand quickly outstripped supply. To ensure everyone got their fair share, food and goods were rationed, obtainable through use of ration coupons.

Many families would try to all sorts of ways, not all legal, to attempt to ease the burden:

I remember the first sugar mouse I ever saw, up to that time, in Wales at least, my mother used to make her own treacle toffee and sweets with rations obtained from the Black market. (she was eventually caught, but let off because the jp was a customer of hers) At the time she ran a cafe in Llandulas North Wales so we had extra supplies for that as well, also we used to have treats that doctors would frown upon nowadays, Dripping Butties and Sugar butties.

The only shortages that seemed to affect us kids was clothing, I spent most of the summers in bare feet, to keep the boots for winter and fireworks, we'd heard about these but would only been able to indoor types which didn't do a lot except create smoke and ash. Luckily, we lived across the road from a quarry so knew how a banger should sound like. My father as a blaster and would sometimes set off blasting caps for us as a treat after a successful blast. Also he would let us help setting the charges, where was health and safety then?! Generally, rationing didn't really affect us as kids, except that you wouldn't see any cars for days on end, the roads were safe and the police and the local AA were on small motor bikes or push bikes.

In general it was the gossip of the women in the shops when we were dragged there that mentioned things like bananas and fruit, the first banana I saw was rationed off in the local grocers in 1949 and raise about 拢1 for the local memorial fund. The quarry managers wife bought it and gave it to the local cottage hospital in Colwyn Bay.

Haydnj1s

Ration books, containing coupons, were issued to everyone. Particularly for children, the rationing of sweets must have been hard to get to grips with:

I seem to recall that ration books were about 12 cms square with a number of pages printed on fairly poor quality paper. The covers of the books were coloured according to the category. A friend of mine still has her book but I believe that this will be for the period after the war as rationing continued for a number of years afterwards.

I believe that rationing did see that people got a reasonably fair share but inevitably there was unfairness and a black market resulted in all areas.

Petrol was only available for essential services.

I can remember the dried eggs but cannot recall very much about them - there was nothing to compare them with as real eggs were very scarce. Spam did not have very much taste and it was still around some years after the war - I remember that when I started work in 1949, and for some years afterwards, you could buy a 'spam sandwich' at the canteen.

I can remember that at one stage you were only allowed a 2 ounce bar of chocolate.

I recall my mother at one time making toffee in a tray and sometimes making mint sweets. However some of the ingredients, eg butter and sugar, were rationed and so this could only be done at the expense of other cooking.

There was a lot of 'digging for victory', and areas of grass land were dup up or ploughed so as to grow vegetables. But there were no bananas to buy in the shops.

I remember that there was a shortage of fruit and at one time my mother bought a quantity of English grown 'Bramley' apples. These were wrapped in newspaper and put into boxes which were stored under the bed and after a few weeks we started to eat the apples. In the autumn we went out into the hedgerows and picked blackberries. These were used to make jam, often used with apples.

It was after the war in about 1946 or 1947 that I was first able to buy ice cream.

My wife recalls that when she started work in 1950 in a grocer's shop, one of her jobs was to take a keg of butter and make it into small pats of 2, 4, 6, or 8 ounces for sale to customers. Butter was still in short supply and this was the shop-owner's method of trying to see that customers got fair treatment by seeing that they only got 2 ounces per person.

Alan Vickers

I remember Dolly Mixtures, Chocolate Chewing nuts and whipped cream walnuts, that my father bought my mother when possible, but my brother Ken williams told me I had to throw one over my shoulder for the Fairies (I was three yrs younger than he and very gullable). I never understood why he always had to go back for something!

Gwen Stone

As rationing began to bite, many families became more adept at managing the household and finding ways of making food go further:

When war was declared I was 16 years old & working in a drapery shop. We had long hours until then but immediately began closing much earlier. As regards food I found rationing hard at first but accepted the inevitable & my Mother was a very good manager & produced appetising meals.

We grew our own potatoes & we had a very prolific Victoria Plum tree. I was used to having a fresh egg every morning but, after a while Mum had the chickens killed for meat. I then had to get used to powdered egg which eventually I found quite palatable. Then there was Spam which I found delicious as bread was plentiful for sandwiches. At the age of 18 I was called up to work in a factory where the food was excellent & plentiful in the canteen.

Joan Boulton

If you had enough money you could buy anything you wanted, at an inflated price. Mostly the food was very boring. My mother was an excellent manager and creative with what there was. My father dug up our flower gardens and grew vegetables and his own tobbacco. He also had an allotment and we had all the soft fruits plus the inevitable rhubarb. My mother salted runner beans and bottled tomatoes and I still cannot waste any kind of food.

Betty Mac (nee Kealy)

British Restaurants were introduced by the Ministry for Food, and were run by Local Food Committees:

The idea was that the people could have a good quality and wholesome meal without having to give up coupons from the ration book. If by chance you had used up most of your coupons for a particular week then you could still have food available in the British Restaurant.

These restaurants were not run on commercial lines and, indeed, though they were clean and well run the appearance of the interior was much like a works canteen. In the case of the restaurant in my home town of Seaham, local allotment holders often supplied surplus vegetables and during the annual shows all of the produce was donated to the British Restaurant after the show.

All food waste from the restaurant was handed over to the local council pig smallholding. This smallholding was manned by a couple of council workers and volunteers who had an interest in the work. They also had a rabbit breeding programme in order to supplement the meat supply. So, you see then, there was really nothing wasted in those days.

We had a British Restaurant in my home town of Seaham in Co. Durham. I had a meal there from time to time and they were good and wholesome but nothing fancy. I think they cost 6d for a dinner 3d for a pudding.

One of the problems faced by the management was that some people felt that the cutlery in the restaurant was better than what they had at home and considerable quanties of knives, forks and spoons went A.W.O.L.! The Seaham Food Central Committee had to provide staff just to see that there were no 'eating irons' taken home.

Les Alexander

Every Saturday lunch time, whatever we had been doing, we set off to join the queue, to have a meal at the British Restaurant in Great Malvern. The queue was long but the food was extremely good, sausage, mash and gravy, followed by a stoggy pudding and custard.

This helped to stretch the coupons, as only money had to be produced for the food. I was nearly seven when war was declared, but I think we paid about one shilling for the meal, and one or two pence for a cup of tea. This must have helped the poor Mums who had to cope with all the rationing. I still hate any queue that forms, and unless really necessary will walk away. Amazing how early experiences colour our lives.

Katie Smith

Even after the war, rationing continued for many years to come, finally ending in 1953.

Rationing, as you may know gradually ended and finally ended in 1952/53 so being approx. 13 years old I am aware of the coupon books issued - as seen in museums or on 'Dad's Army'.

Sweets must have come off rationing earlier as I can remember being able to have a Mars bar when quite young. There were horse meat shops to help out with the meat rationing as far as I can remember.

My uncle Ted was billeted with a family in Antwerp during the war and continued the friendship after. In 1947, my mother, my sister Frances and I (aged 7/8) went to Antwerp for a holiday, three weeks. During the three weeks I saw and tasted sweets I had never seen before, bananas that were not available, brown soft sugar never seen before. They didn't suffer rationing.

Dietians have commented that the wartime diet was very good as it gave everybody a balanced healthy diet. Sugar was difficult to get as it was also on ration.

Montague Trout
's father

Born in 1947 I am too young to remember much about rationing but I do remember my mum and nan going with the books. Some things didn't come off rationing until I was maybe 4 or 5, I think sweets and sugar were in the later ones.

We had a pony and trap instead of a car and living in Thornton Heath, Surrey a favorite 'outing' was to Derby Day at Epsom. Well, the day petrol came off ration was Derby Day 1950 or at least that week and we were picked out on Pathe News!!

We were featured in our pony and trap and the reporter in his unmistakable 'Pathe News' voice said something like "Surely these people don't know that petrol is off ration!"

Margaret Hooker

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