Wartime rationing

Although I was born in the December after the war ended I do remember rationing as it continued until 1954. I remember being sent to the corner shop and having to ask if we could have some tea and sugar from next week’s ration. I don’t know what happened when rationing ended as Mum was always a week ahead!!

I remember going with my dad and younger brother to the sweet shop to get our sweet ration. The bags were triangles. Listen with Mother had a suggestion about sweets you could pretend were dolls pills, neither the sweet shop owner or my father had the faintest clue what I was asking for!

I have found this subject to be so interesting and hope for more posts regarding rationing. I am in the US and my mother never talked about rationing here except something about shoes. She was born in 1925 and I saw a ration book once in her papers. I only wish I had more information about it here. World War II is my favorite subject for reading. Thank you for posting!

pably yes, we used condensed milk. I loved it!

Bellanonna, I remember the coffee in the bottle...Camp coffee..
the sweetie coupons were always gone first. 2 oz of sweets cost 3pence, you had to have a coupon for them, but you could get a penny caramel or gobstopper without a coupon. it must have been a right struggle trying to feed a family. I think I remember my mum putting condensed milk in tea to sweeten it.

Like Monica, I too was born in 1943 and I remember ration books. I lost them once!!
I’d been allowed to carry them in a string shopping bag and somehow they must have slipped out. I can still remember my normally calm mother telling me off for swinging the bag.
The other thing I remember when I was slightly older is that by the bus stop going home from school, there was a chemist’s shop where if you had a penny or two you could buy cough candy that didn’t need coupons.

I found my mils ration book in a biscuit tin after she died. Mind you her whole 92 year old life was in that biscuit tin 😞 it could tell a story, old photos of a Yankee soldier she was in love with.

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

My father grew lots of fruit and veg and mum bottled a lot of fruit. We had chickens so we children did have eggs. Otherwise I think the allowance for adults was two eggs a week.
Powdered egg, a thick yellow substance, was used for baking.
Our ration books were green and the adults’ were beige. At a certain age we progressed to the beige books and felt quite grown up. Sweets were on ration but back then there wasn’t a wide variety of sweets and chocolates. I remember Dad’s coffee being liquid, in a bottle. The last thing to come off ration was sugar. I was 14 and I remember all the girls at school cheering.
Clothes were also on ration and needed coupons. In the early 40s my mother used the clothing exchange. Lots of clothes were called “Utility” and had the logo CC49.
You shopped in a queue and the assistant fetched what was on the shopping list, tearing out the required coupons.

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?

I remember rationing and so will plenty of others here; it didn't end until 1954.

My mother left me in a pram outside the shops, came back to retrieve her rationbook and found I'd eaten it.

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.

That was interesting. I saw pictures of the German occupation of the Channel Islands. That must've been so terrifying. Bless your family for surviving this nightmare period.

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.

I remember rationing. I was born in 1943. Going to the sweet shop once a week for my sweet ration. My mother and grandmother producing ration books at the butcher and grocers.

I remember the day clothing came off coupons and my mother and grandmother gave my sister and I the now not reuired ration books to play with.

We were spared the full rigour of living on rations. My mother and grandmother kept chickens and grew vegetables. As well as that my father was posted to India in 1945 and he was allowed to send one parcel home each month.

My dad was soon pushing the limits and posting one parcel a month to each family member, my mother and grandmother, my sister and I and my aunt, away nursing, but based with us.

These parcels were all beautifully sewn up in cotton and contained food; butter sweets, Vienna sausages, tinned salmon, plus other food. he also sent back supply parachutes, army blankets - I still have one - other lovely fabrics. My grandmother was a professional dress maker and my mother also had sewing skills, so my sister and I had underwear made from parachute silg an dressing gowns made from army blankets, plus other dresses.

I remember going to some offices with my father to collect my youngest sister's ration book.

The books were all different colours. My babysister's ration book was beige. I think children's ration books were green.

I don’t remember anything except the last thing that came off in June 1954 a month before I was born.
My brother could remember our aunt donating her sweet ration to him .