Does anyone from the UK remember rationing?

Question

It was 13th April 1950, my 6th birthday, a secondhand pair of shoes, grey socks up to the knees with a red line on the skin from the elastic, a NEW camelhaired coat bought with a provident cheque, a shiny sixpence and two ration coupons to buy my birthday treat of sweets at the local corner shop. My shoelace was undone so I placed my sixpence on the two coupons on the counter and bent down to tie them, on standing up my coupons were missing. I asked the shopkeeper if he had seen them and got a clip on the ear for being cheeky, no coupons no sweets, some birthday treat. although my parent were sympathetic, there was little they could do, I never forgot. Did anyone else suffer as a child with rationing?

Answer 1

I was born March 1938 and husband born June 1933, so yes we remember it well.
My strongest memory was being lined up at school in the hall where the headmistress had a desk and there was a chalk line in front of it.
We had to take off our shoes and stand with our heels pressed up against her desk; if our toes went over the chalk line we qualified for extra clothing coupons!
I remember wearing my mother knitted green swimming costume for school swimming lessons - which when it got wet, sagged down to my knees
She cut up her pre-war dresses to make clothes for me, I had petticoats made of parachute silk, knitted my own gloves and socks and friday night was darning night listening to the radio.
Queuing for potatoes - 2p. a pound or 7lb for a shilling.
My first banana when I was around 7 years old (1 per blue ration book) and trying to bite through the skin.
As someone has said - we didn't know anything else so didn't realise that things could be different. That's how life was.

Answer 2

I do remember rationing and the adults saying that it was more severe after the war than it ever was during it. i can remember when my parents had coupons for a winter overcoat but no money for one and discussing how they could shuufle bills around so they could get me one. two days later my Dad came home with a grin that ended somewhere arounfd the back of his neck. Unusually for him he had placed money on a horse ( there were no betting shops those days) with a runner and it had won. I got my overcoat and my Mum got some chocolates (with the coupons we had) and my Dad % Woodbine cigarettes. It was the one and only time I knw him to place a bet when he could not afford to lose. I think it was in 1948 that sweets came of ration for the first time and very quicky went back on again. i do not really remember having many until 1953 that I had many sweets and I excuse my very sweet tooth on this perhaps my only childhood deprivation.

I also rem,ember some ssort of an inspector coming around to see why we had gone over the norm in electricity usage. it was because my Grandmother was ill and dying although I did not realise it at the time. I think the only things not rationed or controlled in some way was vegaatables. Otherr things including furniture had to have a Utility Mark which was i think a guarantee of quality, It was debatable whether we were talking about good or bad quality

Answer 3

I was born in 1960 so I missed it although I do remember as a child having to buy everything with provident cheques as my parents could only afford to buy things that way because my Dad earned poor money down the pit. My brothers and sisters were born as the war was coming to an end so don't really remember but of course my parents and my grandparents always reminisced about the rationing and my Nan taking in two evacuee boys from London. One story of rationing I always remember is when my parents married during the war they had to wear their best coats and hats as there wasn't enough coupons for new clothes, they travelled to the registry office on the factory workers bus. They obviously didn't have enough food coupons to have a wedding reception or even a wedding cake but they fell in lucky as one of my Nan's neighbours who was in the army had his leave cancelled last minute so they had to cancel their wedding so they offered the cake to my parents so at least they would have one for their makeshift wedding. My parents have never forgotten that kindness and the fact that everyone helped each other out if they could as everyone was in the same boat in the Welsh Valleys. My parents rented their first house during the war as when the baby came there wasn't enough room in my Nan's tiny two bedroom terrace, trouble was they had no furniture due to the rationing but got a secondhand bed, cooker and my nan gave them some of her essentials and the old piano and they had to manage with old orange boxes instead of a settee and chairs and not much else (eat your heart out Changing Rooms) but they were just so proud to have their own place despite everything. They always say that it was very hard but at least it made them appreciate everything they've had since, they are both now in their late eighties and have been married for 65 years, bless 'em!

Answer 4

You were lucky to only have to endure rationing for 6 years.
I was born in April 1943 and as rationing did not finish totally until 1956 I too remember the hardships my parents had to endure with me and a younger brother (Born 1946). Mainly due to being bombed out of two houses in 1943 & 1944 and losing everything but our lives.
I was never dressed in anything that had not already been worn by someone else until I was kitted out for my Secondary Modern School uniform at the age of 11.
But it did make me frugal and I hate to see food and useful objects discarded just because they are no longer fashionable.
Far too much is thrown away in this day and age.

Answer 5

Well I was born on the 13th April 1934 so I am exactly ten years older than you are.I remember rationing very well,I think the butter allowance was 2 ounces per person per week. How my Mother managed to bring up six children without any help I'll never know.We always ate everything that was put in front of us and you never heard of pernickety eaters.I never had any new clothes of my own until I was sixteen, everything was a hand me down and my shirts were made from an uncles shirts cut down to fit me.Shoes usually had holes in the soles and were mended by putting cardboard inside the shoe.I still can't bear to see food wasted and I always buy local produce to support the local growers. Only this morning in our local supermarket there were carrots from South Africa, and mushrooms from Poland, we live in an area where mushrooms and carrots are grown within 500 yards of the supermarket so why are they importing them from so far away. In the war thousands of people died on convoy duty to keep us alive.

Answer 6

You'd think at my age I should remember but I don't.
The only reason I can think of for that is I lived on a farm. We kept chickens, so we had eggs, plus twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, we had chicken, there was also milk, cream and butter. Rabbit and pigeon were often on the menu. Plenty of vegetables, fruit and nuts from the garden, orchard and hedgerows.
Come to think of it, I didn't like meat very much, so rationing may have been the reason why I was never forced to eat it, as I was everything else that was put on the plate, including the dreaded overcooked cabbage - now THAT was suffering! specially when it was dished up cold at every meal thereafter until it was gone.

Answer 7

I remember rationing - those funny marks in the back of clothing...what were they? I remember the day sweet rationing ended but not the date - 1950/51? I went to the shop without my mother and the ration book and bought a penny's worth of sweeties with 4 farthings. The shopkeeper wasn't amused because she didn't want farthings as they were a pain in the neck to her.

Answer 8

.I don't think I suffered! But yes I remember rationing and going to the local shop for toffee, we did not use the term sweets in those days, I remember the day sweets were taken off the ration scheme and the instant shortage of sweets was so severe that rationing was reintroduced for a short period until the wholesalers could sort them selves out. Was clothing the last things to come off rationing?

Answer 9

There were not really any sweets to buy throughout the war years but thanks to our USA and Canadian soldier boys we never went short when they were around. You will have heard the stories of the Yanks with nylons for the girls ! I do believe they were always so generous to us kids. Without asking they would almost always give the children sweets. At the time we did not realise that these young men were little more than children themselves - and prepared to fight for our freedom.
When the long convoys of army lorries were travelling to the south coast - to take part in what we now know was the D-Day landings, us kids would sit buy the roadside waving to them and in return many would throw out lots of their personal rations,-sweets , tins of bully beef etc. On one occasion I can recall going back home to get a children's pram in order to get so much food and sweets home. Mum was pleased of course.
On every 11 November I honestly remember those brave young men of the USA and Canada. Many of them would not have survived the conflict. May their God Bless them.

Answer 10

I remember it well and sweets were virtually off the menu. The rationing was on everything including basic foods, clothes, shoes etc. It was a daily shopping trip with my mother as she went from shop to shop looking for off ration items. At the butchers meat was strictly rationed but if you were nice to the butcher he held back some liver or heart or kidney for you as offal was not rationed. My mother gave her butcher a Christmas,New year and Easter tip and knitted him socks and gave him other little presents. It worked well until the butcher was sacked by his employer for taking meat for his own use. The egg ration was I thing one per person per week and I was allowed to have the bit of egg that came off when he cut the top off to eat his. In spite of all this we were all fit and healthy and no way could we be over weight.