BBC wartime thrift article

bellsbells

Hi everyone,

I saw this and thought of us! Sorry if it has already been posted - I couldn't spot it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7306451.stm

bells

Penelope_Penguin

"While no one wants anyone to lose their house, being forced to focus on what's important is not a bad thing. Too often people now consider luxuries to be necessities when they're not."

How very true :j Thought provoking article - thanks for posting this.

Penny. x

luxor4t

I shall get this book from the library, as I really enjoyed the last 'Mass Observation' book "Our Hidden Lives".
Thanks OP!

Skint_Catt

As Martin says; bills, food and getting to work expenses are essentials - EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOT! This really made OH think when I repeated it to him!

moanymoany

When London children were evacuated during the war, it was the first time many of them had been given hot food. The slums they lived in had no cooking facilities.

The Government tried their hardest to ensure that everyone got their rations, but many children didn't. However, overall the population were better fed and nourished than they had been in the thirties.

These days it is usually the fat children whose appalling diets leave them malnourished, in 1939 it was the thin children.

Many, like my grandma, pretty much continued the life she lived before the war. She never wasted anything to my knowledge. String, rubber bands, brown paper, tea leaves (used to lay the dust when sweeping the carpet), vegetable water, she preserved eggs in the summer when they were cheap she made wine, she washed her clothes with household soap and ironed them with heavy flat irons. Parcels were tied with string and sealed with sealing wax. Her house was always clean and after dinner (midday) she washed up and in the afternoon she went out to her clubs, knitted, embroidered, sewed clothes and gardened. This was her lifestyle until the late 1960's.

Clothes and household linens were patched and mended until they were rags. Where we lived no-one had much so there were no 'have to' clothes to have. The 'have to's' were roller skates, balls, marbles, skipping ropes and so on as the 'seasons' for these things came and went. I eventually got a bike - second hand and painted blue by my Uncle. It was my pride and joy.

I think that many of us continued a very similar life to the wartime as there was no money to have any more. I certainly didn't have 2 ounces of sweets a week. We ate very little meat, lots of offal and pulses. I hardly ever had new clothes and they were home made from fabric bought from the market. This continued into the mid 1960's, I remember things getting better after that.

Tashja

As Jamie Oliver calls for a return to a wartime diet, a new book documenting how ordinary families survived the austerity of World War II provides some useful lessons in belt tightening.

Does anyone else have the sneeking suspicion that Mr Oliver is a regular on the OS Board and is actually "stealing" ideas for his own gain :rotfl:

T xx

mary43

I was born just at the end of the war..........we were lucky that Grandma had an allottment and a huge garden with fruit trees and plenty of veg, and she kept chickens so we didn't go short eggs...........Mum never had to use the powdered egg that so many had to.
Gran lived the same kind of live until she died in the 1970's............saved everything, there was never any waste. Mum and Dad lived much the same......Dad in particular. Drawers full of pieces of string, and a garage full of odd lengths of wood...........just in case...............my Dad couldn't take something to the tip without bringing something back if he thought it might come in handy.
Socks and jumpers were darner if they had holes in........patches put on trousers..............leftovers from one meal made something for the next.
Sweets were rationed and that was no bad thing really. We could make a crunchie bar last a week ! We knew it was the only one we'd get.
We've certainly a lot to learn from the post war decade. Now it appears to be 'easy come easy go' in the minds of some young people and their parents if they've never known any hardship.

elaine373

OP Thanks for that, very interesting.
I have had a recent keen interest in retro style/shabby chic/ in the past type of style for my kitchen.(That hasnt been moneysaving as i have shopped and shopped for items.) I am wondering whether i could go a bit further and radically change our eating habits.As jamie Oliver says.revert back to how people ate in the 2nd world war. Obesity would be cut by far and that is a personal problem for myself. The only thing i would worry about if i `lived the life` is, would i cope with the `real` world. I already have this feeling of not liking whats outside and sometimes would like to stop and get off, iykwim..(Would love to live somewhere remote) Would this make things worse or is it possible to incoporate it into modern life? Fascinating subject.

Toonie

That was a really interesting article, thanks for sharing it.

One of the links I noticed on the side was http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ which looks like an interesting website to check through, especially the recipe for the potato , bacon and feta omelette.

moanymoany

I recently saw a programme that said the average family eats three quarters of a loaf each week. This is four or five times less than the average family in the 50's.

Now, I know it isn't wartime, but I remember the 50's and I don't think my life was that much different to a wartime life. Bread was VERY important in our diet as it was the basis for one meal - tea in the evening, and an important part of breakfast. Porridge was eaten with bread, if bacon had been cooked for breakfast, it would have been cooked with lard and the small piece of bacon would be eaten with the bacon 'dip'. 1 egg would be scrambled for four and eaton with bread or toast.

At tea time the bread was usually eaten with jam. This was home made and with the cheaper fruit. Usually apple and blackberry, plum or damson. Crab apple jelly was my favourite. These were picked in the cemetary which was like a huge park.

I'm trying to sell my house at the moment and because of the problems it is proving difficult and I've stopped thinking about my new house. I think that the political mess in the Middle East and America, combined with the credit mess in this country means that a good many more of us are going to have to learn the frugal lessons many of us have already learned.

'Belts are being worn tighter this year .......

thriftlady_2

Tashja wrote: »

As Jamie Oliver calls for a return to a wartime diet, a new book documenting how ordinary families survived the austerity of World War II provides some useful lessons in belt tightening.

Does anyone else have the sneeking suspicion that Mr Oliver is a regular on the OS Board and is actually "stealing" ideas for his own gain :rotfl:

T xx

The thought had crossed my mind