大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Alyssa Popiel on behalf of Mary Wright and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

We had to make the best of what we had. You never saw a banana. We got tinned meat, liver, kidneys, sausages, fruit and ham. Sometimes you had to queue, so I started baking my own cakes. You could buy dried egg powder and powdered milk, it had a funny taste, it wasn鈥檛 nice eating dried eggs, the cakes tasted okay, I was a good baker.

You would get rations for a week, you could save up your coupons. You got your coupons from the War Office. I was alright, I never went hungry, but there were no sweets or chocolate. We were desperate for real eggs, you just couldn鈥檛 get them. You were really lucky if you managed to get a rabbit or a chicken. I had relations in the country who gave us food.

During the war, when I was eighteen, I stayed at home. I had to look after my father after my Mother died. I was in charge, I had no option. There was also rationing on clothes, they even started rationing curtain material, as everyone used it to make dresses. I was a tailoress by trade, so I would make all my own clothes. I made dresses where you could change the collars, so that it would look like I had different kinds of dresses. There were also coupons for shoes and towels and even hankies.

I used to work at Meldrums in George Street making officer uniforms, we did not make uniforms for ordinary ranks, only officers. We even made uniforms for the Polish army. However, I had to leave Meldrums to look after my Mother. When I returned we were busy with repair work for rich people. We would work on their clothes repairing linings and pockets.

Food was still rationed three, four years after the war, when I fell pregnant I was taken off the rations.

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