Food rationing

During and after WWII, food was rationed in Britain. Understandable because we were fighting a war and quite a bit of food came from abroad. Supplies were limited and the ships that carried it came under attack especially from German submarines. Many were sunk and many lives lost.

I cannot say that I noticed it from the start for I was only born in 1944. However rationing continued until 1951 and was well aware of it by then. For those of you unfamiliar with this I should explain that you were rationed on pretty much everything foodwise and it was prescribed in detail – x ounces of this, y ounces of that, so many eggs etc. all per week. It was probably meagre by today’s standards but I do not recall going hungry and since the rations were balanced, we probably had a pretty good diet. I do recall being particularly fond of the little bottles on concentrated orange juice. Don’t think I ever saw a real orange for years.

In order to prevent corruption (which happened anyway) families were issued with coupons in a booklet and coupons were cut out for each purchase. I don’t remember the details but I recall that there were different coupons for each type of commodity. You had to go to a distribution centre periodically to obtain a new ‘ration’ book as it was called. The place was packed and the queues were long so I would wander off around the hall. The world was pretty safe for little children then.

One time I got lost amongst the crowd and for this one and only time in my life, I thought I had lost my mom. I screamed and screamed and my mother soon found me.

I have few other memories apart from one. At the top of the road was a sweet (candy) shop run by a lady called Miriam. My mother used to give Miriam the whole sweet coupon page and if I bought sweets, Miriam would cut out the relevant coupon after I had left. Sensible arrangement I think with hindsight. You don’t want your little child wandering around with a complete ration book.

Apparently, (and I only knew of this later) some woman watched me buying sweets and not handing over a coupon. She reported Miriam to the authorities but it all came out in the wash and Miriam was exonerated. Pity the woman didn’t check things out before she made the accusation.

Over all, I cannot say that rationing did me any harm.