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This story is by Dorothy Lowry, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The story was collected by Joyce Gibson, transcribed by Elizabeth Lamont and added to the site by Bruce Logan.
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Has the Waste Not, Want Not wartime slogan coloured your life ever since? It has mine.

I scrape butter and margarine papers as if I was in poverty!

I try to make the end of the soap stick to the new bar — ridiculous.

What about that old vest past wearing years ago? Well, it might be a good duster — but you have more dusters than you will ever need. Ah well, it’s the texture I like for Brasso-ing!

Back it goes in the box in the attic.

What about this old curtain? Has it a partner? No. Isn’t it frayed and faded down one side? Yes! But it might make a couple of nice cushions. Where in the house would that colour or that pattern be wanted as a cushion? And how long is it since you brought down the sewing machine anyway?

But the best-worst Waste Not, Want Not story I have heard was of a family clearing out their mother’s house after she had died. They found neatly stacked boxes in the attic. One of them was carefully labelled “PIECES OF STRING (too short to be of any use)”.

RATION 1940

The war may have ended in 1945 In 1940, a few months after the
but rationing had not, and in 1947 outbreak of the Second World War, the weekly food ration per person food, clothing and petrol rationing was introduced. You’ll remember that by mid 1941 the weekly ration of certain basic foods amounted to no more that what, in a comfortable pre-war household, would have constituted a single helping: a shilling’s worth of meat (half a pound), 1 oz cheese, 4 oz bacon or ham, 8 oz sugar, 2 oz meat, 8 oz of fats (including not more than 2 oz butter) and 2 oz jam or marmalade
s d
2/3 loaves a week (price varied according to supply)
2 oz tea 5d (2.1p)
2 1/2 pints milk 12 1/2d (5.2p)
1 egg 1 1/2d (0.7p)
8 oz sugar 1 ½d (0.6p)
2 oz butter 2d (0.8p)
4 oz margarine 2 1/2d (0.9p)
4 oz cooking fat 3d (1.3p)
Fresh meat 1s 2d (6p)
Six medium eggs 7 ½
4 lb loaf bread 8 ½
1 lb butter 1s 3d
1 lb Cheddar cheese 1s 2d
12 Shredded Wheat 8d
1 pint beer 9d
Inland letter post 2 ½d

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