A Child's War
Page 6
Communal feeding centres were set up. Their purpose was to serve low-cost, healthy meals, which used non-rationed food. Early in 1941 they were rechristened ‘British Restaurants’, and eventually there were over 1,000 of them set up around the country.
SOME WARTIME RECIPES
All these recipes are taken from some of the many recipe books and leaflets printed at the time. Like many of the recipes of the period, they reflect the ingredients then available, or more accurately unavailable. While it can be fun to make and sample the food – some of them are quite good – I have to say that some of the recipes in this book taste quite appalling, and are here for historic rather than gastronomic reasons!
Woolton Pie
The ingredients of this pie can be varied according to the vegetables in season. Potato, swede, cauliflower and carrot make a good mixture. Take 1 pound of them, diced, three or four spring onions, if possible, 1 teaspoonful vegetable extract and 1 tablespoonful oatmeal. Cook together for 10 minutes with just enough water to cover, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool, put in a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cover with a crust of potato or wheatmeal pastry.
Eggless, Fatless, Walnut Cake
4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts
4 teaspoons baking powder 1 good cup milk
1 good pinch salt
Mix flour, sugar and chopped walnuts together. Add salt and baking powder, then the milk. It should be slightly wetter than an ordinary cake mixture. Leave to rise for 10 minutes. Bake in a greased tin in a slow oven until risen and brown.
Treacle Toffee Carrots
½ pound sugar
½ pound treacle
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 ounces margarine bundle of fresh carrots
Melt the margarine in a strong saucepan and add the other ingredients (except the carrots). Bring to the boil, and boil steadily until a little dropped into cold water immediately becomes brittle.
Wash and scrape the carrots, and see that they are all well shaped. Dry them thoroughly, dip into the toffee as soon as it reaches the brittle stage. Pour the rest of the toffee into a greased tin to set firm.
THE YANKS ARE COMING
On 7 December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, and on 11 December Germany and Italy also declared war on the USA. Throughout 1942, US troops began to set up bases in Britain. They brought with them forgotten luxuries – ice cream, sweets, gum, and other shortage goods – and were followed everywhere by swarms of children on the off-chance that they might give some away. Derek Dimond was evacuated to Stanstead and remembers the US airmen:
Later in the war the Americans came and built an airfield. We used to watch the Marauders flying out: count them out and count them back, then work out how many hadn’t returned. Sometimes they would come back damaged, on one wheel and so on, and crash on landing, if you were lucky there were flames – we were only children and thought that was very exciting, all the fire engines. I remember a Canadian plane crashing onto some pigs in a field and blowing up, we all collected up all the bits of aircraft for our shrapnel collections.
One popular saying that the kids used at the time was ‘Got any gum, chum?’ – the Americans used to have strip chewing gum and red apples, which you could only get from the United States. They used to go back home from Stanstead station and as they left they would throw them, and money, to us from the train.
Having plenty of everything – ‘Over-sexed, over-paid and over here’ was one popular description of US servicemen – meant that they were extremely popular with children and young women, but loathed by everyone else, especially the British servicemen. This ill-feeling was taken so seriously by the government that a number of films were produced which showed British and US troops working together to beat the common enemy. Examples included Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale and Rattigan’s The Way to the Stars, each of which also shows a sympathetic relationship growing between US airmen and British children.
The numbers of US troops, or GIs as they were called, built up as plans were laid for the Allied invasion of France (D-Day) in June 1944. June Fidler from Peckham:
I remember just before D-Day, all these huge American lorries were parked all along both sides of the road by Andover station, waiting for the US soldiers to come out of the station to take them to Portsmouth. We went and stood by the lorries talking to the troops. They gave us sweets and gum, it was my first taste of chewing gum. I also spoke to my first black man then, he was the driver. I went home and told my Nan; she said; ‘They’re not black, they’re coloured.’ That was the polite word in those days.
Not all the children were so friendly; Christine Pilgrim of Peckham recalls: ’We had a big American base near us, I remember seeing the GIs in their smart uniforms, some of the boys used to talk to them but we girls were very strictly warned off doing so, they were, after all, strangers.’
A FOOD FACTS QUIZ – CHRISTMAS 1941
Is Father as all-wise as he thinks he is? Does Mother know her P’s and Q-pons? Here’s the way to find out! Make a game of these questions round the fire this evening, and see whether the men or the womenfolk score the highest. The total score is 55; 50 is excellent; 40 not bad; anything less than 30 is – probably Father!
1 Which of these is the correct way to wash cooking fat so that it can be used again?
a) Pour boiling water over it; b) Rub through a fine sieve; c) Bring to the boil in water, pour into a bowl; when cool, lift off and scrape underneath; d) Hold it under running cold water.
Score 10
2 a) Is the following statement true or false? A child needs more meat than a man does.
b) What is the value of Points coupons A, B and C?
Score 5 for each question, full score 10
3 a) How many yolks and how many whites are in a ⅓ packet of dried eggs?
b) How many packets are you allowed this month?
Score 5 for each correct answer, full score 10
4 What is (or are) Rose Hips?
a) Name of a famous woman spy; b) An eastern dance; c) Pods of the wild rose, rich in Vitamin C; d) Name of a Russian folk song.
Score 10
5 How much priority milk are children under six allowed?
Score 5
6 Two of the following are provided by the Government for children under six years old. Which two?
a) Cocoa; b) Cod liver oil; c) Cornflour; d) Tomato juice; e) Orange juice
One correct answer 5, full score 10
PENALTIES: Ask Mother if she’s filled in Section A at the top of page 35 of her ration book. If not she must deduct 5 from her total! Did Father offer anybody some of his sweet ration this Christmas? If not, he loses 5 from his score!
ANSWERS: 1 c). 2 a) True. A child needs actually more meat for its body weight than a man does. This is because meat is the kind of food (called protein) which is needed by the body for making new tissue and bones. b) A, 1; B, 2; C, 2. 3 a) 12 yolks and 12 whites – i.e. 12 whole eggs; 2 for adults, 4 for green ration book holders. 4 Pods of the wild rose. 5 7 pints a week for green ration book holders. 6 b) and e).
SEVEN
Clothing
Children’s clothes were far more formal in the 1930s and 1940s than they are today; their versions of trainers, track-suits and sports wear were strictly limited to the games field. For younger boys, perhaps 4 to 14 years old, normal dress consisted of short trousers, long socks, worn with sandals or boots, a shirt and tie (usually a school tie, often knitted), worn with a v-necked jumper and a jacket or school blazer. The whole outfit was finished off with a cap, usually from school or the Cubs. The illustrations to Richmal Crompton’s Just William depict this perfectly.
For younger girls of school age, cotton frocks (dresses) in summer and gym-slips and blouses in winter were standard, worn with long socks or lisle stockings, sandals or shoes, topped with cardigans or jumpers, and either a school beret or a hat (st
raw in summer, felt in winter).
In winter, boys and girls would add overcoats or raincoats, with knitted woollen scarves, knitted gloves and, perhaps, wellington boots.
The passage from childhood to adulthood was very different at this time; at about 14 or 15 children suddenly became adults. The concept of the teenager appeared only in the 1950s as a reflection of the increased spending power of the age group brought about by post-war prosperity.
Fashions reflected this: teenage boys wore smaller versions of men’s suits, which were sold with the option of long or short trousers; similarly teenage girls began to wear smaller versions of their mothers’s day dresses, and stockings instead of socks.
Some items of clothing were introduced, or made fashionable, by the war. Trousers, totally a male preserve before the war, were worn by more and more women, along with the ‘siren suit’ – what we might today call a boiler suit or overalls – and a head scarf. These were worn by factory workers and so wearers had the air of doing their patriotic duty; as such the clothes became fashionable, especially among the middle classes. Another item of wartime ‘clothing’ was the helmet: gentlemen’s hatters, such as Dunn’s, sold bakelite versions of the steel helmet, and every boy, including William, wanted their own. In William and the Evacuees (published in 1940), Richmal Crompton showed William in urgent need of 1s 6d – but penniless:
William wanted a tin hat. All the other Outlaws, all the other boys he knew, had tin hats of one sort or another, but it so happened that William was without either a tin hat or the money to buy one. Very inferior ones could be bought for as little as sixpence in Hadley, but William did not want an inferior one, and in any case he did not possess sixpence. The one he wanted cost one and six, but he was as likely to possess the moon as one and six, he told himself, adding with bitter sarcasm, ‘a jolly sight likelier’.
RATIONING
Clothes rationing was announced on 1 June 1941 as coming into force immediately. unlike food rationing, it was not primarily brought in as a result of shortages of raw materials, but in order to release factories and factory workers for war work. There were no separate ration books available, but people were told to use the spare coupons in their food ration books for the first year. Separate clothing ration books were first issued on 1 June 1942, these having red covers.
Rationing was extremely tight. The following suggested plans from a book printed at the time show how little you could get (children’s outfits would be similar, with just a few changes, for example, girls socks instead of stockings).
Four-year Plan for a Woman’s Wardrobe
First year
Second year
1 pair shoes
1 pair shoes
6 pairs stockings
6 pairs stockings
10 ounces wool or 2.5 yards material
8 ounces wool or 2 yards material
1 suit
1 silk dress
1 overcoat
underwear: cami-knickers or vest and
2 slips
knickers (2 or 3 pairs)
1 blouse
corselette or brassiere and girdle (2 or 3 pairs)
Third year
Fourth year
2 pairs shoes
1 pair shoes
6 pairs stockings
6 pairs stockings
4 ounces wool or 1 yard material
6 ounces wool or 1.5 yards material
1 jacket
1 woollen housecoat or dressing-gown
1 skirt
underwear: cami-knickers or vest and
2 cotton or silk frocks
knickers (2 or 3 pairs)
2 slips
corselette or brassiere and
1 pair corsets
girdle (2 or 3 pairs)
6 handkerchiefs
6 handkerchiefs
Evening-gowns are omitted from the plan since they are, in any case, not essential garments for most people. Special sportswear is also omitted on the same grounds. A macintosh is not included because umbrellas, which are unrationed, can be made to serve instead, used in conjunction with an old coat.
Four-year Plan for a Man’s Wardrobe
First year
Second year
1 pair boots or shoes
1 pair boots or shoes
6 pairs socks
6 pairs socks
1 suit (no waistcoat)
1 pair corduroy trousers
1 overcoat
3 shirts (silk or cotton)
collars, ties or handkerchiefs
2 pairs of pants
2 vests
1 pair gloves
Third year
Fourth year
1 pair boots or shoes
1 pair boots or shoes
5 pairs socks
6 pairs socks
1 suit (no waistcoat)
1 overcoat, or unlined mackintosh and
1 pullover
vests
2 pairs of pyjamas
collars, ties or handkerchiefs
3 shirts
2 pairs of pants
Clothes rationing was a particular nightmare for parents. The scheme took little account of children growing out of their clothes. One early book had a section on this entitled: ‘To eke out children’s rations’; part of it ran:
Either through the school or through your local Women’s Institute, you may be able to get in touch with other mothers and arrange to exchange your children’s garments. You give a good dress or a suit, too small for your own daughter or son, and get in exchange a pair of shoes or a coat which can be worn for a year or more.
The question of school uniforms is already being tackled by the schools themselves. Uniforms are likely to be considerably simplified and, for the rest, an exchange system is almost certain to be worked out before the difficulties become formidable.
All sorts of clothing were in short supply. John Merritt:
In 1943 my family moved to Wokingham in Berkshire. I joined the 5th Wokingham Scouts and we used to have our meetings in a hall near St Paul’s School. I do know that uniforms were in short supply, especially shirts and shorts and the ‘lemon-squeezer’ hats, which were much coveted. I did, however, get some green binding tape for my mum to make flashes for my socks, they of course fitted to the elastic garters that kept my socks up. Ninety-nine per cent of the boys wore short trousers. I didn’t have a pair of long trousers until I left school at 15.
As part of London’s evacuation scheme the London Clothing Scheme was set up. Some of the children being evacuated came from very poor families indeed, and had few suitable clothes or shoes. Clothing stores were set up by the Women’s Voluntary Service in reception areas, stocked partly by clothes supplied officially and partly by gifts. Children’s parents paid according to what they could afford.
Clothes could be passed on and patched only so often before they became unwearable. At the end of 1942 it was announced that older children would receive extra clothing coupons in the following year’s book; those born between September 1925 and December 1926 were to receive 10 extra coupons; between January and July 1927, 20 coupons; and from August 1927 up to the end of 1929, 30 extra. And if you think that was a bit complicated, there was more:
Children born after 1929 – who, when measured on or before 31st October 1943 are 5 feet 3 inches or more in height or who weigh 7 stone 12 pounds or more* (or need to wear boots or shoes of a size larger than 5½ in boys’s or 3 in girls’s) will receive 20 extra coupons (in addition to the 10 extra already supplied to them with their clothing book).
*Heights and weights must be measured without boots or shoes, jackets, waistcoats, and 2.5 pounds must be deducted to allow for weight of other clothing. One thing never in short supply was bureaucracy, or ‘bumf’ (bum fodder – toilet paper).
MAKE DO AND MEND
To make the most of their existing clothes, the government encouraged people to ‘make do and mend’ (this meant patching and mending existing clothes
) and to ‘sew and save’ (altering old clothes to make new ones). To this end the Board of Trade introduced the character of ‘Mrs Sew and Sew’: she was used in a series of advertisements to show how to ‘turn two old dresses into a new one’, and so on. There were meetings run by the Women’s Institute or the WVS to give demonstrations and advice.
Not all the advice was particularly helpful. The Ministry of Information booklet ‘Make Do and Mend’, published in 1943, contains the following: ‘Cutting-Down for the Children – Plus-fours will make two pairs of shorts for a school-boy. An old skirt will make one pair of knickers and a little play-skirt for a seven year old.’, and, most baffling of all, ‘Woollen stockings with worn feet can have the legs opened down the back seams and can then be made up into an infant’s jersey. Bind it with ribbon at neck, sleeves and hem.’
If you were prepared to pay there was always the ‘Black Market’, which meant buying things illegally. But the goods were not always what they seemed. Vivien Hatton: ‘Once we went to a market near Ludgate Circus, there were some wide-boys selling nylons without coupons. They were very expensive, ten shillings, I think, but we thought we’d got a bargain. When we got home and opened the boxes we found they had seams at the front – we’d been sold rejects!’