Wartime rationing

I was born in 1951 and my parents once told me they only had me to get an extra sweet ration! (I think they were joking)

I still have my Mum's special ration book that she was issued with when she was getting married in January 1948. There are coupons for a double mattress (not a bed!), linoleum, blankets, a pair of sheets and pillowcases and an eiderdown, as well as 1 saucepan and 1 frying pan. Because Mum and Dad were moving in with his parents, the coupons were never used - except the one for curtain material - which Mum made a maternity dress out of as I arrived 9 months after they got married..! 😄

My parents left UK in 1947 and one of the reasons prompting their departure was rationing as well as housing shortage in London due to wartime bombing.

I was born in 1954. My mother, who used to smoke, found it nigh on impossible to get the cigarettes she usually smoked during the war, due to supply issues etc. Instead the only ones the local shops stocked were called 'Pasha' and they were apparently foul, being made with all sorts of cheap stuff. She and her best friend persevered, even though they were horrible (hello nicotine addiction!!), and then when the war was over and rationing ended, her preferred brand - Woodbine- came back into the shops. However, she was by now so used to Pasha that the 'proper' cigarettes tasted odd to her. She eventually gave up smoking aged 70!

Very few people were overweight in those days!!

My Mum was born in 1931. She always says that she wasn’t allowed bananas during rationing, but her younger cousin was because he was under 7.

I remember my Aunt telling me that her family and a few neighbours formed a ‘pig club’ they feed it scraps and shared the meat out when it was slaughtered. That was allowed under rationing rules!

My parents were divorced. But I used to be put on the train in Southampton going to Waterloo, all by myself. I was about 10 years old then.

But I do remember having my ration book and being told not to lose it and to give to mum on arrival.

Gin
I lived in the suburbs of London and to this day my stomach reacts to the sound of a siren as my father was in the London Fire Service in the thick of the bombing.

So did we and likeyou, the sirens tighten all the muscles in my stomach.. The German bombers who flew over us to bomb the docks and East London, sometimes could not drop all their load on the docks so as they turned for home, they dropped them randomly across South London. One was dropped on my grandmothers house, destroying it and a neighbours with limited damage to surrounding houses, the only bomb on the road.

The V1 rocket attacks, destroyed my mothers ability to sleep well for the rest of her life. Because you tensed when you heard them, and when the noise stopped you prayed that it wasn't directly over your house and you were not due to be killed in the next few seconds. When it wasn't over your house, you were so thankful you were saved and then felt guilty because you knew that your escape from death was someone else's death

It is interesting, I have read that us old uns that lived through food rationing are the most healthy sector of the population. We had limited sugar and fat, many had home grown vegetables and eggs. We also kept rabbits for food and ducks. We all walked everywhere and played outside, never in each other’s homes and roamed far and wide without parents panicking.

We used to get food parcels from an aunt in America. She sent them every month and they usually arrived in batches. They contained tinned food like ham and butter and fruit. I loved the swan soap and the dresses she sent.

During the time of rationing, America used to provide us with chocolate powder, I presume now that it was to make hot chocolate drinks but we ate it by the spoonful! Sometimes we were given lemonade powder. I have no idea who distributed thse treats but gosh the excitement they gave us. We were easily pleased as we had so little.

Our local grocers, who I think you had to register with to use your coupons, I remember so well. It smelt delightfully of bacon and butter and cheese. The butter and cheese were cut with a wire and the butter patted into an oblong with wooden paddles and stamped on the top, all that effort for a few ounces.

We queued for hours, me being a nuisance because I was bored and being given morsels of food to keep me quiet.

I lived in the suburbs of London and to this day my stomach reacts to the sound of a siren as my father was in the London Fire Service in the thick of the bombing.

I remember rationing very well. My grandmother had a sweet shop and, when it ended in 1953, I remember the queues to get into the shop. They briefly took sweets off rationing in 1949 but the queues were so long they had to reintroduce it. It's the later date I remember most, being only 5 in 1949. The thing I hated about rationing was having to count the tiny squares from ration books for whichever authority the shop had to send them to. I still have the tin my grandmother kept them in. We had our own hens and a garden large enough to grow vegetables and fruit so didn't starve too badly.
When Covid broke out and shops had scarce supplies I reverted to rationing mode and bought accordingly. I still have a rationing book somewhere and my husband has his identity card from birth to prove he was entitled to receive rations.

I remember that we still had gas masks after the war,I was born just before the war ended, if I remember correctly they were black rubber with a green part at the end, we used to play with them...I don't know what happened to them.

Thanks for the information on the baby gas masks Elegran.
Obviously I have no recollection of mine but was told that it was blue with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the outside. How true I don't know! But I did bawl and it was never used again after the try out.
Oddly, I have always disliked small spaces. Connection?

The only thing I heard from Mum was that she gave away her sweet rations because she didnt like sweets. She said the sirens would always go off in the night and every time, the whole family would have to get out of bed, go downstairs and huddle under the staircase for safety.

BlueBelle

I was born as the war was ending but I do have my mum and dads ration books in the archives somewhere It’s amazing how little the weekly rations were

You must have had a ration book book too BlueBelle. I was born in 1949 and I still have my ration book. I lent to a local museum recently as part of a WWII exhibition.

At the beginning, there were gas masks for adults and children, but not for babies, as they were still being designed and produced. My parents went to collect theirs and asked what they should do to protect me.

"Just take off her nappy and hold it to her nose", they were told, "The ammonia will neutralise the gas." My mother was affronted that they thought she would leave a wet nappy on me long enough for it to turn to ammonia.

When the full-body baby gas masks did appear, they were a long lidded box that you laid the baby in (with a small clear window), and a valve with a hand pump attached. A parent had to keep pumping continuously to keep a supply of fresh air going in to keep the baby alive. They were like little coffins. The babies didn't like being shut in and made their opinion known by bawling, using up their pumped-in air supply even faster. Most parents found it more scary to think of the danger of their child suffocating than of the smaller risk of possible gas.

This interests me because I never knew rationing. We went abroad in 1947 when I was 2 and returned when it was all over. I know we lived very much better than those back home, with American and Australian food supplies. My parents used to send parcels home but they often disappeared on the way.

SpinDriftCoastal

Sarnia

My paternal family were under German occupation in the Channel Islands for 5 years. They had rationing with bells on. My Granny made jelly from hedgerow berries and bladder wrack seaweed. A canning machine was hidden from the Germans and Granny and her neighbours took turns each doing this. When it was her turn she hid it, wrapped in an old grey blanket and tucked it well into the woodpile in the corner of her backyard. No sleep for her that night. Being found in possession of something which the Germans had banned was punishable by imprisonment, fines or deportation.
I was 6 when sweets came of the ration. I have made up for that since.

My grandfather was a Jerseyman. There were terrible food shortages by Christmas 1944. The SS Vega brought Red Cross parcels which saved the day. The Germans were not allowed access to the parcels and were on the brink of starvation themselves, forced to eat rabbits, birds, etc. People in the country were better off than those in the town as they had animals and crops. From what I heard rationing finished about 1954.

They were desperate times for those lovely islands. You are right about the rationing. I remember going to the local Parish Hall in 1953 with my Primary School to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation. From somewhere our Mums had produced mountains of sandwiches, cakes and jellies. We made short work of it.

MT62

Sarnia

My paternal family were under German occupation in the Channel Islands for 5 years. They had rationing with bells on. My Granny made jelly from hedgerow berries and bladder wrack seaweed. A canning machine was hidden from the Germans and Granny and her neighbours took turns each doing this. When it was her turn she hid it, wrapped in an old grey blanket and tucked it well into the woodpile in the corner of her backyard. No sleep for her that night. Being found in possession of something which the Germans had banned was punishable by imprisonment, fines or deportation.
I was 6 when sweets came of the ration. I have made up for that since.

Why was it banned Sarnia?

The Germans had priority over food and drink. Rationing was very strict. Some Islanders were not above reporting others in return for a food parcel. After D-Day, when the Germans were in retreat in Europe it became even worse. No supply ships were sent to the Channel Islands from June 1944 until May 9th 1945. Food, fuel and medicines were desperately short. Any islander having access to food, surplus to the ration, such as the canning machine, would have suffered the consequences. The Germans banned many things in their 5 years of Occupation.

I was born in 1943 too and apparently was issued with a whole body gas mask - like a tube that the baby was placed inside. I didn't like it and screamed the place down until removed from it apparently. As we lived in a Pennine village away from the danger of bombing or gas attacks it was never used from necessity.

My Dad was in the regular army and was posted to West Africa when the war ended but rationing continued for us at home. He used to send wonderful large tea boxes packed full of extra supplies. I remember both dried and tinned fruit, tinned meats and butter and whole coconuts with every space being filled with peanuts in their shells. It was a red letter day when one was delivered and Mum must have heaved a sigh of relief to help her feed we then four children. A fifth child was born in 1950.

I remember when sweets came off ration too and the joy of buying 2 ounces of smarties in the familiar triangular white paper bags with my weekly pocket money. No other sweets featured in our lives - just the once weekly treat.

Our meat ration was delivered by a local butcher in his little van on a Friday night. No choice of what came - you got what he could supply. Sometimes with an extra couple of sausages tucked in with the meat parcel.
It was just normal and what we were used to but looking back it was very difficult for our Mothers. Luckily my Mum was a good manager, a good cook and a gardener so we survived and I think make do and mend was always a part of our lives. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs and homemade things!

Sarnia

My paternal family were under German occupation in the Channel Islands for 5 years. They had rationing with bells on. My Granny made jelly from hedgerow berries and bladder wrack seaweed. A canning machine was hidden from the Germans and Granny and her neighbours took turns each doing this. When it was her turn she hid it, wrapped in an old grey blanket and tucked it well into the woodpile in the corner of her backyard. No sleep for her that night. Being found in possession of something which the Germans had banned was punishable by imprisonment, fines or deportation.
I was 6 when sweets came of the ration. I have made up for that since.

My grandfather was a Jerseyman. There were terrible food shortages by Christmas 1944. The SS Vega brought Red Cross parcels which saved the day. The Germans were not allowed access to the parcels and were on the brink of starvation themselves, forced to eat rabbits, birds, etc. People in the country were better off than those in the town as they had animals and crops. From what I heard rationing finished about 1954.

Born in 1953, but we always had plenty of sugar in our tea.

No wonder we all needed fillings!

I remember being given an orange. Possibly after the war ended. I was told not to eat the white pith as it was poisonous. Also I remember when sweet rationing ended and being able to buy a big bad of aniseed balls.

I can remember on the way home from a shopping expedition sitting in my pram surrounded by what Mum had bought and feeling very annoyed at how much of it was lying on my legs. So I picked up a jar of strawberry jam and heaved it out. It smashed with a satisfying crashing noise. Mum was less happy - that was our jam ration, and we would have to do without until the next lot of rations were due.

My Mum told me you could only get white wool if you had a baby. A woman came to the office where Mum worked wearing a white jumper that she had knitted from wool her sister had acquired when she had a baby. Mum said she was green with envy.
She also told me that loaves of bread were a sort of grey colour. When the war ended she bought a white loaf and ate slice after slice until it was nearly all gone.
She told me that her mother (my Gran) used to join queues at the Co-Op often not knowing what she was queuing for and hoping it might be bananas which they hardly ever saw for the duration of the war.