the great war, WWI OS ways etc

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I know there is a thread somewhere on WWII etc, but with this year being a 100 years since the start of WWI, I thought it would be fitting for us to have an OS thread in memory, and also what life was like for families during this time.


There a 14 page special on this in my nfu ( national farmers union) which got thinking more about how people coped.

Snowy_Owl

I don't know much about the day-to-day living so wouldn't know where to start! Great idea though, will subscribe!

Ballymackeonan

My mum told me that there was a major shortage of soap during WW1 - so that my gran stocked up on it at the start of WW2 (a case of soap - maybe 40 bars or so!) By the time the WW2 shortages started, it had gone rock-hard and was almost impossible to use.

Since gran was from a farming family, and had married into a family with a bakery, I don't think there were too many food shortages for them, not like in WW2!

mardatha

I love history and have read a fair bit about WW1, only none of the books seem to mention cooking. I think a lot of soups and porridge, stuff that I eat now

Seakay

"rationing came to Britain only in the last 12 months of the war"

http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/the-war-effort-at-home

The main differences seem to be the shortage of men so that farming was done by women, and sometimes prisoners of war, internees and conscientious objectors and women took on some men's jobs, often while continuing with their own.

Early 20th century diet was quite different to today's, but I can't find much indication that it changed during WW1 to any great extent.

mardatha

How was it different to today Seakay - what did they eat? Am quite interested in this

[Deleted User]

mardatha wrote: »

How was it different to today Seakay - what did they eat? Am quite interested in this

I think almost anything they could.A lot of service men ate better in the army then they did at home.So many units were called 'bantams' as a large majority of men at that time were seriously underweight through poor diet. we were discussing this at History club a few weeks ago and my tutor was saying how a lot of chaps when enlisting were really not fit to fight.This of course changed as the war wore on.many enlisted for not only patriotism, but for three meals a day.
I remember reading about how there were bits of sawdust added at times to watery jam to look make it like seeds:eek: How true it was I'm not too sure.By 1916 enforced enlistment came about and you had to have a jolly good reason not to join up.
Men sadly were dying in their thousands a whole generation of young men just vanished.My late Mother was born in 1900 and by the time she was in her late teens there were not that many men around of marriagible age her sister never found a husband and my Mum married my Dad at 35 and he was a widower by then.Her other sister never married until her late 40s. The war had a fairly devastating effect on the home front for women, with lack of men around to marry and have children with.
Many who were married, were left widowed with children to bring up on very little money at all.Its said that not a family in the land didn't lose a member at some point during WW1

Ballymackeonan

I was in Ulm in Germany earlier this year, in the Bread Museum (worth a visit if you're ever there!) and part of the display was about rationing - the first time I'd seen a WW1 ration book, both the British version and a range of German ones. Rationing wasn't universal in Britain - it didn't apply here in N Ireland (nor did conscription). Rationing began a lot earlier in Germany, and bread was eventually of very poor quality - the great majority of the population was already malnourished by 1916.

There's a good article about cooking using a WW1 cookery book here:

http://www.greatfoodclub.co.uk/blog-my-win-the-war-cook-book-menu/#.U84mT_ldV1Y

mardatha

That's a very interesting link, thanks!

RAS

If anyone has read the Persephone publication "Around a pound a week", they will have a good idea how poor the pre-war "working class" diet was for many families.

Basically tea and bread with a scrape of jam or marge for most meals except once on Sunday. Working men got some sort of snap or piece once a day - a slice of bacon, cold meat from the Sunday meal, a kipper - because it was required to enable them to survive manual work.

Army recruits were fed three times a day and many of the volunteers were attracted by the feed rather than the role.

At a time when the country needed everyone to do as much work as possible, women (mainly) were wasting vast number so hours queuing for scarce food. Rationing aimed to improve the appalling quality of army recruits and to free up time which could be spent working for the war effort or growing food etc.

rockm87

Not entirely related, but I think there is a blog somewhere of a lady who followed a WW2 rationing diet to lose weight.