Rationing In Britain

I've been searching for this film for years as my dad is the butcher serving Mrs. Green in the shop. I saw the clip once on a BBC programme years ago & my dad just happened to be watching at the same time. He'd often told me about the information film he'd taken part in during the war but had never seen it, so it was a treat for us both the see it together, quite unexpectedly on on TV. In the war he worked as a butcher by day and ARP Warden by night.

I think this video should be shown in all British schools today. It may get the children thinking just how lucky they are today...Everything is sooooo taken for granted.

My Grandmother lived through both wars. Now i know why her cupboards were full of Fray Bentos tinned steak & kidney pies, corned beef, spam and Princes tinned Salmon. All of that stuff could survive a nuclear holocaust and still be good to go with a bit of HP brown sauce.

I was born in very early 1938 and lost my entire family during WW2: ended up in a State orphanage. My usual total food intake throughout my time in there was: a bowl of porridge and one piece of bread/margarine for breakfast; a bowl of stew at mid-day ( 200 yards to school so we did not get dinner in school ); and a slice of bread with cod liver oil dribbled on it at about 4:30 pm. Very occasionally we were fed some dried egg ( I adored it ) and had our individual ration of 3 pear drops; which never varied. A whole sweet was never consumed at one 'go ' but was sucked for a short while and then returned to one's little storage jar - the rest to be enjoyed later. In 1947 I finally saw a raw egg - never seen one before and I thought it was a stone. I had never seen raw meat nor cooked meat in a form I could recognise. Finally adopted I had to ask before I could have a piece of bread, a biscuit etc. and bacon/meat was commonly removed from my plate by my ' male ' adopter. and consumed by himself. I knew fish only from the picture on a tin of pilchards and for some time thought fish tasted like tomato. I learned differently when I began to receive school dinner - a magnificent meal but often small portions. I cannot recall being anything but hungry; apart from after that meal.

My late mother(born in 1934) grew up in London during the war.When she married my Dad,and came to America in 1955,she was amazed at the abundance and variety of food in grocery stores.

Food rationing only ended in Britain on July 4,1954 with the end of sale restrictons on meat and bacon.

As a 1949 baby boomer, I can remember the concentrated orange juice, and the malt extract. No sweets, and no adverts on the BBC.

My grandmother survived a concentration camp and on liberation, married a British soldier and eventually moved to the UK. Even with rationing in effect, she was astounded at the amount of food available here in the UK- she hadn't seen anything like it in her life. She was from an extremely wealthy family in Poland that had access to anything they needed until they were stripped of everything and forced into a ghetto but regardless, she was in heaven with the choice of food on arrival to the UK!

My parents lived through rationing with 3 children. Mum always kept a very well stocked food cupboard and passed that habit to me. My children think I am ridiculous but I would rather that than any other way. I can always make something to eat in contrast to one of my daughters who lets her cupboards empty completely before she shops. I think we are going to be going through rationing again soon here in the UK, unless they just have us all use food banks.

There was a lot of truth to that statement. During WW2 in Britain, from what I understand, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses plummeted to the point that by wars end, they were non-existent. Watch the Supersizers Wartime for a look. If you know that show, you'd be amazed how their general health actually improved over the week (while normally there's some less than desirable results from other regimes).

I love that joke at the end. Anyhow, it may not effect entire nations anymore, but many people still struggle with hunger. I live in the US: When I was in college I couldn't afford breakfast at all, and lunch was only half what I would rather have eaten. I was on the "standard" meal plan at my dormitory, which assumes you go home to your parents for the weekends and sometimes go out to eat during the week, but I had no such support and had to make that meal plan stretch to cover everything, and it was not nearly enough. Well, enough to live on, but not enough for satisfaction. Shortly after college, I was unemployed for six months and had to cut out lunch too. It was just dinner and one snack per day. I got so gaunt! Beans, pasta, a chicken a week, a few cans of tuna...that was about it. I probably would have qualified for food stamps and food banks, but I didn't realize it. No one is taught about those things. Today I weigh nearly double what I weighed at my lightest, and I'd much rather have it this way than go back to living with daily hunger. It drives you mad...

Thanks - it was an amazing experience to find this clip. I followed it up by contacting the Imperial War Museum who sold me a copy of the film for my own family archives, so now my grown up offspring can see what Grandpa looked like & did in the war. It really was quite a find.

Fish was not rationed, so fishermen would go out and catch fish for dinner and for selling. Fish and chips become "famous" during this time.

An example of true national effort. There's a Pathé video that shows that despite six years of rationing and bombing and fighting, on VE Day these same long-suffering Britons massed in front of Buckingham Palace, sang God Save The King, and shouted "We want the King!" Never fails to produce a tear in my eye. God bless and preserve their memory!

My Mother did all of the families clothes shopping in our local Army and Navy surplus store in post war England, inside that store was uniforms from all over the world, I started school in 1950 and my Mother bought me set of clothing that she thought would be durable and hard wearing fashionable was never a thought that occupied her mind, and so it was I attended school dressed as a Japanese General and I didn't even stick out from the crowd lots of my classmates were dressed as Gestapo Officers and storm troopers.

I was friends with an older English couple for about 20 years until their passing. He was child during WW2 in London and would talk about living and sleeping in the underground (The Tube) tunnels at night due to the bombing. His wife was from a farm in rural Dorset during the war. She talked about going to bed and hearing the German planes headed to London and other cities. She said the family seldom took shelter as there was nothing to bomb near her except dirt. I stayed with them at their home in Poole. Even then they still tended a small garden in their back yard. Ray said the war turned the UK into a nation of gardeners. Both world wars are given little coverage in history classes here as they seldom get much time as the school year is almost over by the time they get to it. Rationing over here pretty much ended with the war. I was surprised to learn of continued rationing for almost another 15 years after the war ended. I have read that at the height of the convoy sinking that the UK was down to a few weeks of food supplies on hand and real chances of starvation happening. All things considered, you have a lot to be proud of. I’m glad there is a special friendship between our countries (and all the Common Wealth nations) and hope that continues indefinitely.

Was born in Forest Hill, Lewisham. I joined up in 61, mum and dad and the family moved to Hastings in 63. I worked in France from 76 and got retired there. Still go home 2/3 times a year. Mum is still alive at 93 yo. I went back to see my birth-place, nothing remained. They even torn down my school and built houses. So sad.

Here in the US my mother told me stories of how they had rations and how since they were Mormon, they had always been taught to have a years supply of food for an emergency, even back then..so when she was a child, 30's/40's, she said they had plenty of sugar and flour etc..pretty much everything nobody else had a large supply of, they had plenty because of the teachings of the church to save for a rainy day..Mormons to this day still do this..food storage...Not a bad idea no matter your religion or lack there of!

I find these kinds of films so interesting... so now that the war is over I still see some people struggling to buy food. So grateful for even a pack of noodles a day here at college. Great learning.

Even in the nightmare of the war, British ladies still kept elegant life. It’s admirable