WWII Rations

[Deleted User]

Good Evening maryb,
Your mum, as most Mum's are, was quite right.Boils were quite a common childhood ailment,along with impetigo and stye's and chilblains. A lot of the children had not ,especially if they were city kids, the oportunity to have fresh friut for one thing.
Orange juice was virtually unheard of, although there were small bottles to be had at the 'clinics' where for about a shilling (5p.) your mother could buy a bottle of highly concentrated orange juice. Mind you very few women did as the idea of children drinking O.J, wasn't very common. Rose hip syrup was available .It was very thick pink coloured stuff that I hated as I had visions of eating roses for some reason. At school, along with a free one third bottle of milk doled out every morning was a cod-liver oil capsule, or if you were lucky a spoonful of Virol.
Virol came in a large brown bottle, and had the consistancy of very thick tar. I didn't mind the taste so much ,but at my school there was only one spoon per classroom. So, as it was dished out alphabetically I was quite lucky as my surname began with a B. As long as the previous child hadn't got a bad cold or cough you could survive the winter without too much trouble.
Today's Health and saftey folk would have had a fit.
'Nitty Nora'the school nurse came regularly to the school, and weeded out the kids who were scratching. The ones with impetigo (usually the boys) had their heads shaved and painted a beautiful violet colour with a lotion.
As a rule if one kid went down with Chicken pox or measles or mumps they all got it. It meant that you all seemed to get an immunity for life. The kids that didn't catch anything were often pitied by the others as rather odd !!
Many of the children in my school came from homes where they not only had not enough to eat they often had not enough clothes to wear.
In the winter most little boys noses were permanantly dripping, and everyone had chilblained feet. At my school on Blackheath the school furnace was situated in one of the classrooms .I can remember to this day the smell of damp clothes steaming over the guard. Our teacher used to make us drape our socks over the guard to dry them out.
I believe that six years of a restricted diet affected everyone .My two brothers and I grew up being able to eat virtually anything and we never turned our noses up at anything.
When I look at my strong healthy grandchildren they seem to be very tall by comaprison to my generation I have an old school photo taken during the 1940s and there was 38 children in my class and they all seemed to be very short for their age .Both of my brothers never got above 5ft 7 and I am only 5ft 4. Yet my grandchildren ( the four eldest who are 10, 12, 13,& 15 are all taller than me already.)
I was fortunate in a lot of ways ,my Dad was a chemist and although we wern't rich we had more or less enough to eat.A lot of the problem wasn't always caused by lack of money though ,it was sometimes just lack of stuff in the shops.
I went to Poland a couple of years ago, and it was very reminicent of the post war era. A lot of shops with empty shelves, and queues everywhere.
But we all survived and that was the main thing. But I can honestly say I don't think there were very many 'good old days '
I can mostly remember being cold and always feeling a little bit hollow.
Mind you the only good thing I suppose was there wasn't the obesity about. You walked everywhere as few folk had either cars or petrol to run them on. School dentist were seemingly paid by the tooth as filling were almost unheard of.It was a case of, if in doubt whip 'em out
There was certainly more community spirit though and a higher respect for the 'old bill'
If a policeman told you off, you would be terrified that you would be brought home to your parents.
Both of my brothers had their ears 'clipped' by the local bobby.
He would probably have been summoned today or sacked.Teachers also would throw blackboard dusters at the incalcitrent pupils.These were wooden and gave you a nasty bump on the back of the head. Made you sit up and listen though.
Hard times at times, but I wouldn't have missed them for the world ,but I am also glad that they are a thing of the past and today's generation are much better fed and a whole lot healthier.

maryb

I remember rosehip syrup. Mind you this was obviously long after rationing because my mother used to serve it as a sauce for ice cream. Even as a child I thought it was sickly sweet.

They did still have rationing when I was born - but only just and it was abolished before I needed a ration book. We still have my husband's ration book (him being two years older) which both DDs took into school when they were doing WW2 in Year 6. Gales of giggles at the thought of their parents being soooo old

catznine

Although I was born a decade after WWII but still remember rosehip syrup (used to be given a tablespoon a day and loved it) windows that iced up on the inside (no central heating) and flying blackboard dusters (we soon learnt to duck those!:rolleyes:)

Although rationing was over there wasn't a lot of money around and I don't remember the choice of foods that we have now. I do however remember my favourite Christmas as the one where Dad didn't get paid (his bosses mistake) so we went to my Grandparents and had a real old style home made Christmas. We made all the decorations (paper chains and snowflakes), pressies which were mainly home made knitted scarves that somehow picked up dropped stitches and grew in the middle of the night!

Despite there being no money for gifts I remember it being the happiest Christmas of my childhood, which I think came as a pleasant surprise to my Mum as it was a very stressful and worrying time for her and Dad!

HOLsale

thriftlady wrote:

I am quite tempted to have a go at living on rations.But I wonder whether my egg-allergic dd would have got something else to replace her egg ration or would the rest of us shared out her egg?

well you could substitute soya flour for the dried egg powder. not entirely authentic but it would be ok for your daughter. you simply use one heaping tablespoon soya flour and 1 tablespoon water per egg to be used in baking (you must use some other form of fat though as it won't rise if you don't)

i've got the set of 3 marguerite patton books and they are brilliant, i really should try making more things from them

i listened to a bbc 4 interview with her a few weeks ago and she was very very interesting.. the books are great and i would highly recommend them, they aren't just recipes either they have a lot of interesting stuff about the war in them

Dora_the_Explorer_5

I've just asked my dad "No the bloody government didn't give me owt else because I couldn't eat eggs, and it never did me any 'arm".
He said the grub during the war was disgusting and disguised and it was only the fags and black market whisky that kept him going. Then he went overseas to fight and spent 2 years as a POW. The grub was non-existent and disgusting and not disguised with few fags and only moonshine to keep him going.
He says anyone that wants to try a WW11 diet is having a laugh unless they do it for years - that's when they'll really find out if it's ok or not .
I'm still laughing !!!

tiredwithtwins

Dora_the_Explorer wrote:

I've just asked my dad "No the bloody government didn't give me owt else because I couldn't eat eggs, and it never did me any 'arm".
He said the grub during the war was disgusting and disguised and it was only the fags and black market whisky that kept him going. Then he went overseas to fight and spent 2 years as a POW. The grub was non-existent and disgusting and not disguised with few fags and only moonshine to keep him going.
He says anyone that wants to try a WW11 diet is having a laugh unless they do it for years - that's when they'll really find out if it's ok or not .
I'm still laughing !!!

when discussing this with my mum (who's 72), she pretty much said the same as your dad........except the bit about black market whisky lol.......and said she wouldnt want anyone to have to go through the deprivation and hardship they went through.
although 72, she is currently learning how to use the computer/internet...which she says is so much better than what her gran had to do when she turned 70 - which was darn the family's socks!!!

sue :xmassmile :rudolf:

Dora_the_Explorer_5

I'm past retirement age but all tekkie'd up -lappy, mobey, satnav - and every time summat gets iffy and I have to sort it out I remember my granny had to cope with nothing more complicated than a mangle :rotfl:

moggins

My little one asked me if I used to use a mangle, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I only turned 40 this year

Chipps

moggins wrote:

My little one asked me if I used to use a mangle, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I only turned 40 this year

:snow_laug :snow_laug reminds me of the time my mum took my sisters & I to the museum of London (quite a while ago now, we were in our teens ... and I have certainly turned 40 )
Anyway, we were looking at a reproduction of an air raid shelter, & mum told us about having slept in one when she was a small child. Nearby was a young mum with a little girl of about 3, who piped up "Mummy, did you sleep in one of those, too?" The young mum was most offended at the thought that her daughter thought she was old enough to remember the war!

calleyw

I do agree that a rosey picture is painted about the war time rations. And lots of people did go to bed hungry.

But the whole concept of using everything up and not chucking a way food and making every last scrap count is something that we could all learn to use today.

As I said before thousands and thousands of tonnes of fruit and veg is wasted every year because it does not make class 1. Who cares. If I grow my own veg most of it is not going to be class 1. But I still eat it. Not like it is poisoned or anything.

We try and live in a perfect world. Where only new and the most expensive are the best. Which is rubbish.

I now have got in the habit where if something looks like it is going over or not going to get used up in time. I pop it in the freezer. Like the other day my mum gave me a load of cox's apples. They where starting to go over and I knew we never eat them all. So in the slow cooker to be cooked down and then in the freezer. And fingers crossed will be making a crumble in a little while to go with sunday lunch if they defrost in time.

I am going to be watching my shopping habits this year and try and throw nothing away apart from peelings. yes I know I could use them. But I don't like soup.

Yours


Calley