2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Welcome back @basketcase. We’ve missed you. 

Laura_Elsewhere said:

One of the problems with numbered sizing is that different makers of clothing as well as sewing patterns used different schemes. I can't remember who or what now, but I have seen interwar patterns sized with the number meaning the waist in inches, and others with the number meaning the bust in inches and still others with the number meaning the hips- and of course that might vary within just one maker for eg skirt or blouse, so you might buy a 36 blouse pattern to wear with your 42 skirt... 
Children's sizes I think were always age-average, same as nowadays- you buy children's clothing in a size called "age 6-8". It's still fairly variable- I actually buy children's cotton-rich school tights, and cut off the tops and hem thge cut leg-edges to give me long over-the-klnee socks. Given that I am an adult size 22-24, it really REALLY makes me wonder about their "age 10-12" schoolgirls' legs...!!!!! (Yes, I know there's stretching involved but all the same- it baffles me that they fit!). 

In public health terms, the late 19th and early 20th centuries are renowned for mass malnutrition in Britain, much of which was due to the poorest people in urban settings living mostly on potatoes & margarine and bread & margarine with buckets of sweet tea and occasional fish and chips, but not much else, literally- the Boer War triggered the 1904 Report into the Physical Deterioration of the Nation, which in turn led to the 1906 legislation introducing the first school meals- which themselves were frequently porridge, or bread and dripping or bread and margarine. So you do get a lot of older people who are obese, from exactly the same causes as many nowadays- eating a diet that is sufficient in calories but insufficient in nutrients. 

Exactly my thoughts @Laura_Elsewhere

Sarahspangles said:

PipneyJane said:

The triple-drug therapy was discovered in 1956 by John Crofton’s team in Edinburgh, but the individual meds had been used unsuccessfully for long enough to make it worth trying the triple-drug approach… which so nearly eradicated TB… very sad…

Sadly, not everywhere was as thorough as Australia in their screening and vaccinating for TB.  (We had a compulsory chest x-ray program that extended into the 1970’s.  I remember the mobile screening unit parking up in the local shopping centre.). However, even with that going on, in the 1980’s I looked after a handful of patients with active TB.  Several were Vietnamese refugees. One was a Yugoslavian lady, who’d developed TB meningitis. 

- Pip

My current Ministry job involved a discussion on this very topic just this week

I do wonder if not vaccinating is a false economy @Saraspangles.  I know that BCG’s do not last forever - I’ve been vaccinated twice, once at 14 and once at 24 - and was tested every time I started staffing at a new hospital.  (NB:  I left nursing in 1992.)

- Pip

Sarahspangles

PipneyJane said:

Sarahspangles said:

I’d say the ladies who were overweight or obese were 50% genetically predisposed that way and 50% eating (and drinking) the wrong stuff. Irrespective of how hard they worked in or out of the house. I have some sympathy, if within living memory your community had been hungry, and you yourself had had a family with small children to get through rationing, being able to feed people nice things felt like a positive.

The infamous British sugar addiction, @Saraspangles?  I can’t remember now where I read it, but I do remember being shocked at the average amount of sugar consumed pre-War.   It may have been mentioned by Marguerite Patten.  (I was lucky enough to attend one of her talks, 20 years ago.). No, I don’t remember the amount consumed, just that the sugar ration was keenly felt by the majority.  What is indisputable is that the health of the nation improved because of rationing.

They were simply told that sugar was energy food, and it tastes nice so they thought they were doing the right thing, and their families certainly didn’t mind. Me and my cousins were just reminiscing that one Nana would feed us sugar sandwiches! Or ‘pobs’, which was white bread crusts soaked in milk. However they also seemed to be aware that men needed protein foods, presumably by observation of their work output if they didn’t have enough protein.

In the next generation, my mother was worried about something called ‘night starvation’ which you could combat by giving your children cereal or Ovaltine.

I don’t think it was inevitable for people to gain weight. My slim Nana recommended cutting out all bread, potatoes and cakes and using sweetener if you wanted to manage or lose weight. But she learned that from associating with dancers, not from any public health messaging.

Laura_Elsewhere

Back to Making Do & Mending... I decided to finish knitting the pair of socks I absent-mindedly paused a good two years ago, lovely socks, although a bit complex... 
You're ahead of me here, aren't you?  

Very very sketchy notes jotted down on a scrap of paper, argh...!

They'll be worth it though... now onto the foot of the second one, but I really must make better notes at the time! 

Cherryfudge

Sarahspangles said:

I learned something interesting* from my seamstress** grandmother about bust sizing.

* Interesting in a niche way! ** Not the Discworld kind of seamstress.

It did come to mind... 

@Laura_Elsewhere - those will be fab for bonfire night. I think I can read the note, but might need help to understand it!

Nelliegrace

The BBC Home Service put a short wireless programme to encourage men and women to exercise.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/7a7c5eb48fa3456ab27dce7e9638e0c5?page=6

My mother was in The Women’s League of Health and Beauty, wearing her white satin blouse, black bloomers and swinging a hefty wooden club, with a group of women in the village hall every week. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbO9RAXHdHU

Nelliegrace

The hospital League of Friends had a fundraising stall at Bridgnorth market today. I felt that I had to support such a good cause and bought two pairs of hand knitted gloves, and they were coupon free! I expect that they are using up every spare bit of wool they can find, and there were some original mixed colours in the knitted pull-on hats. 

Then I visited the overseas aid charity shop and found a one-and-three-quarter pint Denby Homestead teapot. I would have been jumping for joy, but I was hugging it very carefully down the steep steps from Hightown. The metal railings there have been taken for scrap, and the wall is too low to give much support. The leaves made it slippery underfoot.

We were glad of our flask of tea on the train because there were no staff for the buffet car, and like so many railway journeys, we were delayed to let another train through. I expect that their journey really was necessary. 

We visited a pub for lunch, and I was served a small glass of rather weak beer and a hot pasty which was mainly vegetables, but very tasty. The fire, which used to be heaped with coal, had just one small log, and none put out for customers to build up a blaze. Times are hard for many and we need to do our bit. DH had a letter to confirm that his winter fuel allowance has been stopped, such a waste of paper and a stamp, to write to everyone, when it was announced in the newspaper. 

Cherryfudge

I hope your Denby Homestead teapot made it safely home, @Nelliegrace! I collect Homestead and some pieces are in daily use. It's very durable.  

Cherryfudge

I've just ordered a book on the strength of reading a stub on Kindle: 'Loved Clothes Last - how the joy of rewearing and repairing your clothes can be a revolutionary act' by Orsola de Castro (pub 2021).

Has anyone read it? What are your thoughts?

PollyWollyDoodle

Don’t know that book, sorry.  Goodness what a lot of posts in the last 24 hours! 😄 good to see the village hall being used so much. 

Fab socks, @Laura_Elsewhere, I am still struggling through a pair I started ages ago, I just don’t love the feel of them and am not enthusiastic about finishing them. However I’ve been distracted by quickly crocheting some poppies for a local appeal.  

Interesting debate about diet. Yes, there were always some overweight people (by the way, Pip, you definitely need to look at Giles cartoons!) but not the numbers we see now.  Most people ate home-cooked food three times a day, there were no ‘snacks’.  Most people also took a lot more exercise just because life was harder - physical work, gardening, cleaning, washing by hand, walking because few people had cars.  And no UPF - a lot of sugar, true but it was consumed in foods like cakes and pies (and ladled into the ubiquitous British cup of tea).  

I speak as one of the overweight majority myself.  I think UPFs are a huge problem (no pun intended), not something I ever eat now but I’ve had my fair share of ‘convenience’ food in the past. has anybody read the blog by the lady who was going back to food rations as a way of losing weight?  

maryb

I follow her Facebook group.  Very interesting.  When the Eat/Lancet Diet for the Planet was announced a few years ago, I looked at the quantities and thought Hang on!  I’m sure I’ve seen these before.  It is very similar to ration quantities except for meat where it seems more restrictive - hard to tell since WW2 meat rationing was by price.  But the egg quantities were also very restricted.  Anyway that got me interested in rationing so I had a half hearted attempt to see if I could stick to it.  Tea would have been a problem!  But surprisingly the fat ration was ok.  I assumed I kept some backyard hens but I don’t use enormous numbers of eggs most of the time.  I couldn’t have coped with the most limited ration of milk but the more generous amounts would have just about been ok.  Cheese was hard - I don’t use it in cooking every week but when I do I doubt the weekly ration would have been enough

so it was an interesting experiment Not as difficult as I thought, probably because I cook from scratch anyway but it would have been desperately wearing to have to manage like that for 14 years

So after that I found this thread and here I am.  This is my second year and I completely blew the budget last year and the first half of this year because I lost two stone and had to replace my entire wardrobe.  But I haven’t needed to spend any coupons since June as all my new last year winter clothes are fine.  So going forward I hope to manage better