Thriftlady's wartime experiment

Justamum

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Congratulations, thriftlady, on being in Martin's weekly e-mail.

Penny. x

:mad: I haven't got mine this week!

thriftlady_2

OK, I think I've finally got the hang of Photobucket -turns out to be much easier than I thought.

This was tea yesterday -raised pork pie, potatoes and salad.

Icemaiden

Wow that meal looks fantastic TL :T Going to make the Syrup loaf this afternoon for pudding later:D

rosieben

Looks great! I've copied out this recipe (and the Syrup loaf) to try - I've never made hot water crust pastry as I thought it was difficult but obviously isnt according to your recipe.

I'm really enjoying this thread, thanks thriftlady and everyone who's contributing. :T

Errata

It's pretty impossible to be totally authentice because nowadays people don't do the manual jobs + nightshift firewatching+cycling everywhere+walking to school+no housework electrical appliances+no central heating. Which all used great amounts of human energy which needed fuelling !
My older rellys memory of the war is being hungry, cold, tired out and frightened.

thriftlady_2

Errata wrote: »

It's pretty impossible to be totally authentice because nowadays people don't do the manual jobs + nightshift firewatching+cycling everywhere+walking to school+no housework electrical appliances+no central heating. Which all used great amounts of human energy which needed fuelling !
My older rellys memory of the war is being hungry, cold, tired out and frightened.

Yes, you're quite right of course. The family who did the series The 1940s House had an almost completely authentic experience. They had air riads and had to sleep in the shelter, they did voluntary work and all the manual housework -washing without a machine :eek: , getting the boiler going, coal shovelling, walking to the shops. I don't even do that I can easily walk to my local shop, but it's Tesco :rolleyes: and I like the farmshop and butcher they have a more authentic feel and the food is local and I can get unhomogenised milk there so we can have top of the milk.

I do walk the kids to school though, so that's something I suppose.

sandy2_2

hi Thriftlady, keep up thegood work.
Would your chocalate spread recipe turn into a chocolate blancmange if you added more flour, milk and/or water

Penelope_Penguin

thriftlady wrote: »

OK, I think I've finally got the hang of Photobucket -turns out to be much easier than I thought.

This was tea yesterday -raised pork pie, potatoes and salad.

Can I come and live at yours? I can be a Land Girl - set you up a veg plot - I'll bring some hens, and maybe a piglet

Penny. x

Penelope_Penguin

Justamum wrote: »

:mad: I haven't got mine this week!

Look at the top right of the page - there's a red box *Free Money Tips Email*. You can view this week's and register again to receive it.

I think this has happened to lots of us at one time or another.

If you're still not receiving it next week, have a look on the *Money Saving and the Site* board - there may be a more general problem.

HTH, Penny. x

margaretclare

I've read most of this thread with great interest. I was a child during those years you're talking about. IMHO it would be pretty well impossible to replicate all of the conditions that applied then, and who would want to? As Errata has said, life was a lot more physical. I walked 2 miles to school from the time I started at 5 years old. One of the things I do remember very clearly is the fact that we had a savings bank at school - the school acting as a sub-branch of the Yorkshire Penny Bank (now the Yorkshire Bank) in the nearest town, York. Going to York, 12 miles away, was an occasion, I was taken there perhaps once in 6 months. For the adults, everything was just darned hard work.
So many of the 'make-do-and-mend' ideas that have been described were maybe not only due to wartime conditions, but to poverty. People were used to making and mending things. Maybe that was why they adapted so well to harsher conditions - food on 'points' etc - because they didn't expect much in the first place. At least when food was rationed everyone got the basic essentials of life, and food suppliers were prevented from profiteering by putting up prices.
A lot of the stodgy, fatty puddings were real artery-cloggers, only people walked or worked off the excess. Certainly, I used to walk home from school without anything to eat or drink in the 2 miles, nothing since school dinner. Nowadays the children have to go into a shop immediately they come out of school, you see them with their bottles of pop and packets of snacks as they walk along, and throwing the wrappers down everywhere! They look as if they need something in their mouths all of the time. I can't imagine them walking 2 miles on nothing.
I got slammed on a recent thread on Martin's site, it was about people not being able to pay Provident, and the discussion turned to whether people should go into debt to buy the latest 'must-have' toy as decided by the advertising industry - someone said children would be bullied at school if they didn't have what everyone else had. Hand-knitted clothing and second-hand toys at Christmas were just sneered at.
I feel that a lot has gone wrong, and while we may enjoy buying bananas and exotic fruit and veg from round the world, if ever similar conditions were imposed on us again - as, for instance, when the oil runs out - people would be hard pushed to cope with it. Whereas 1940s people were used to coping with poverty, no benefits, being self-reliant and resourceful, and they coped well.
Margaret