Rationing In Britain
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ม.ค. 2010
- COI 155
An American commentator looks at the effects of rationing on the people of England in 1944.
The film presents a 'typical' family of 4 (housewife, engine-driver husband, factory-working daughter, schoolboy son) to illustrate the basic rationing system, the workings of 'point' systems and other restrictions, and the difficulties the average family faced when eating 'on the ration'.
Explore IWM's film collection: film.iwmcollections.org.uk
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.
Hi Joyce My Grandfather was Mr Green. He was Moore Marriott, he was in a lot of movies. :)
That’s brilliant! A good film.
Elizabeth Gadd Still enjoy seeing him in the Will Hay films as Harbottle😂😂😂
I know that "Dad's Army" was a gentle parody of the extremes of the time but nevertheless provided a good insight to those who were born after and not before the war - the art of going without and making do, for example. Jones the Butcher and his veteran delivery van , for example!
To Joyce and Elizabeth: Wow, small world. The daughter of the butcher and granddaughter of Mr. Green, commenting on the same channel. I bet this film brings back a lot of memories for you two.
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.
Amen!
I think kids today would do better than to be guilt tripped by this propaganda. Who started the war? Who imposed these restrictions? Not the common people. And yet young people today should feel "lucky" they enter the workforce with barren job prospects, unaffordable housing, and a government that will lock them up if someone catches the flu.
The video just shows how incompetent the government was. They continued with rations after the war while other countries didn't. It's just idiocy.
Exactly kids need know how we used to live
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.
I just got through reading your riveting account of what you had to go through as an orphaned, very young, child. Thank you very much for posting it. I would wager that once the rationing had stopped, or, more so, once you were on your own as an adult, these past tribulations influenced your life in ways quite differently than others who'd not experienced them at all. Once again, thank you.
Donald, sometimes watching TH-cam is worthwhile. Your fascinating comment made it so today.
Cheers.
Horrible. A childhood stolen. Even worse that the adult stole food from a child.
My dad never talked about his childhood or the war but I suspect food was limited at home in the Depression because he was a cook in ww2 and worked in the restaurant business until he passed in 1979.
Lo siento mucho ❤️
Как жаль, чёрствость взрослых это то с чем я никогда не могу примериться.
Помню мы с бабушкой ходили пешком в наш маленький сад. По дороге она ,мне 6 летней девочки, показывала разные травы рассказывая как их можно приготовить для еды и лечения.
" Вот будет голод" эти ее слова меня очень удивляли ? 1968 год. О каком голоде она говорит и когда он будет?
Вот 1993 - 1999 . Небольшой город на Волге. Пусто в магазинах,талоны на самое необходимое. Масло,сыр,яйца, сахарный песок. Семья ,двое маленьких детей. Задержка зарплаты у мужа по 8 месяцев. Тогда я вспомнила все,чему меня учила бабушка. Была ей очень благодарна.
Вот липа - заваривать и пить,вместо чая. Помогает от температуры и кашля.
Вот пижма - можно жевать сухую.
Вот одуванчик - из листьев делать салат.
Вот цикорий - можно заменить кофе.
Вишнёвой полочкой - чистить зубы.
Вот у этого растения - мыльный корень.
Это ужасно,что теперь я записываю всё это для моих внуков.
Я очень благодарна " окорочкам Буша", также как мой отец всегда вспоминал железные банки с яичным порошком из Америки.
Говорил,что только они не дали им умереть от голода.
Теперь мне так больно за все ,что делается . За развязанную войну, за авторитарный режим.
Когда же мы все поймём каждый день это - радость. Каждый человек - ценность.
Извините за сумбурность.
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.
good old hp brown sauce
I love HP sauce.
Not on the Salmon, that should be red, where is your decorum 🙂
It is ,I live on it!
It is. I live on it !
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.
I, too, was born in 1934. I,too,lived in London. (Hampstead) during the war. We had rationing until the 1950's.
If I remember well, it was only in 1955 that rationing in Britain was completely abolished. I first went to Britain in 1951 (London, Oxford...) and - coming from Portugal - I found that restrictions were severe! During the War, we in Portugal had some rationing too; but I remember that several people who lived over here and had some family or just friends living in England or Scotland, would spare some of their rations so that they could send packets to Britain to help those people! As regards food rationing one may say that , by 1950 or before, was completely over. Portugal remained neutral during WWII (luckily for us, of course... but for the Allies as well! Just remember the last scenes of "Casablanca"...)
I live in Australia, and after watching a lot of TH-cam videos, I'm amazed today at the abundance and variety of food in American grocery stores. If you guys had a good medical system, I'd come and live there.
Guns. We have guns. You gave yours up. We don't need someone here that gives away guns. If you do come, bring some of those hotties from Wicked Weasel with you. You can stay for a week if you bring some of those baes. Mate. @@sibellakingston52
@@sibellakingston52 We don't need or want you to live here.
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.
As a 1949 baby boomer, I can remember the concentrated orange juice, and the malt extract. No sweets, and no adverts on the BBC.
+GreenmanXIV
wot no cod-liver oil?
MY PARENTS GAVE THAT TO ME SOMETIMES. IT WAS EVIL.. NOW I HEAR IT REALLY IS BAD FOR THE GUTS.
And the cod liver oil..... hhahahah
GreenmanXIV oooh malt extract!
GreenmanXIV powdered egg
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!
Wow. Thank you for sharing your story.
LOL@@gracemarion499
I read a memoir of a Nazi POW who said he realized they couldn't win when he got to the USA and found that the rations he was given as a prisoner were better than he got from the Wehrmacht before he was captured.
Food rationing only ended in Britain on July 4,1954 with the end of sale restrictons on meat and bacon.
Interestingly, without all the fatty meat, heart attacks and strokes dropped.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 did they really though? seed oils like margarine have a much stronger correlation with reduced lifespan. animals fats prolong lifespan. this is the well-known French Paradox.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 Nice opinion, not a fact.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 this is sarcasm?
Even bread rationing lasted a few years after the war.
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.
Not for the people that live there.
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.
Be different these days, thanks to new foods, people can survive longer without it, I would keep a stocked up cupboard though just incase.
Food banks will be the ration collection hubs.
It will be real life version of hunger games.
I’m in the US- why do you think that there is going to be rationing in the UK? We certainly are having trouble getting certain things where I am, but not to the point where you can’t get any food.
@@lindadeeds5326 We have strikes at the largest Port in the UK, Rail strikes and a shortage of lorry drivers too, which affects the transport of food and goods. Add to that the rapidly rising cost of Food, Fuel and Services while our wages are kept low, most have not had a pay increase of any substance for years. Even well paid people are having to rely on food banks to feed their families. Rationing may have to come in to ensure everyone can eat.
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...
I feel for you. After college, i took a job as a substitute teacher for a rural school to teach music. It snowed so much that there was pretty much no school for the entire month of January. I went a whole month without making money and then had to wait until mid February to get a paycheck with any money on it. For breakfast each morning, i had a packet of hot chocolate made with hot water, lunch was a rice crispy treat bought in the cafeteria and dinner might be some potato chips. I had $10 a week for gasoline and it had to last a whole week. This was in 2000. It never occurred to me to apply for government assistance. I had a nice, thin figure then!
In Scotland 50 years ago one meal was sufficient
No fat people and everyone walked
It's a miracle that you survived. 💐
I eat one or two meals a day by choice. I'm used to it and don't get hungry. I never worry about gaining weight , can eat as much as I want when I do eat. The less you eat the less you need to eat.
Americans eat way too much.
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).
It's true that, meager as the rations seem, they actually produced a healthier population. But that's partly because before the war the poor ate WORSE than when food was rationed. Before the war the poor couldn't afford to eat much more than tea and bread.
seed oils correlate with heart attack rates, so that margarine was basically poisoning them. stick to lard and butter. Not sugar.
@moi2833 Paradise. We couldn't afford water so my dad would punch us in the face and we'd drink our tears with a slice of used paper for tea. And we were GRATEFUL.
@moi2833 no need to take the p1ss, just learn what bad government can do to people
It's a Monty python reference!
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.
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!
The last couple of years with this
Bloody covid have made think of
That generation. We are a bloody
Disgrace, panic buying at
Supermarkets and they went
Through a world war.
Bulldog Breed 🧐🇬🇧✌
@@martinjenkins6467 they had no choice. This is a propaganda film. Being surrounded by water made imported products more difficult to get so they rationed. And they rationed bread eventually and continued rationing for bread years after.
@@kristinesharp6286 no, this is documentary not propaganda.
@@alanhat5252 70 years from now someone will be posting to the internet about how we rationed baby formula and toilet paper during COVID and someone will comment how everyone worked together to make supplies stretch and more babies were breast fed. Uh no.
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.
I agree; well said!
Britain was on war rations right up to 1958.
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 adore your comment! 😂
Must be the same shop my mother went to!
I had the ugliest, heaviest, bulkiest army coat that you've ever seen, and I had to wear it to school because it was warm and "practical"
Hated it!
This is undoubtedly the absolute best comment I’ve read on TH-cam.
@@TragedyASkates Thanks my friend although my post was meant to be a bit of fun, it was true apart from the Japanese General bit, I and my class mates did attend school dressed in all manner of military uniform, my Mother also made floor coverings from the uniforms she bought and she tossed a few army great coats on the bed to cover up me and my two brothers and the dog they were warm but very heavy making us prisoners in bed till she released us in the morning.
@@PatrickKelly-lz3pv
cool story kid
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.
Potatoes and fat were rationed though, the old chippie where I used to live said he was only open two days a week for one hour..
Fish was not rationed as the government were aware of the tough work fishermen had to do to catch the fish in waters where the Nazis had mined and patrolled. So fish was unrationed but hard to find, which is why the price of fish and chips rose high.
True
The more you know
Today, fish is more expensive than meat, which is half as healthy!
In those times there was a strong sense of community and a "we're all in it together" attitude so there was lots of private trading and sharing so everyone helped each other get through those difficult times. Saving, budgeting and being resourceful were common attitudes in those days. If we could adopt some of those wartime principles we could get through this world reccession as they got through their ration period.
Absolutely, Unity is what we need
the poor, are the only ones helping the poor, the powers that be, even tax you, for dying
@@kittykitkat4968 Now more than ever.
This message is just as relevant today. Sadly us humans never change
many of the survival skills were taught at school
We moved in 1950 from 2 rooms in Camden Town to a new 3 bdroom flat in Islington - thought we'd died and gone to heaven! We also got a TV about that time (Muffin the Mule) - there were 30 3 or 3 bdroom flats - kids coming out of the woodwork! Everyone was in the same boat, working hard, no money, but at least, no bombs dropping on us - now I live in the U.S. (Minneapolis, Minnesota) - still miss my old London. Where are you?
I live in Minnesota too
Pat Ojanen nothing stays the same!
That's what ALL Londoner's are now saying. It's more like Londonistan.
So much of old London has gone. I do not think the my late father would recognise St Mary Axe now though he worked there all his working life apart from a stint at the Camberwell TA site in the pay corp. It was an Anti Aircraft site during WW II,
We left London for Liverpool. We struggled constantly to afford a box of a flat, and now live in a 2 up 2 down twice the size and we can afford it more easily.
Excellent perspective,hope no one ever needs to go through this misery again
starview1 man we have short memories
I actually think it's a good idea to curb consumerism ... if they could do it then in the name of victory in the war, we can do it now to save our planet.
starview1 - Hopefully we’ll be able to red pill the sjw’s, snow flakes, progressives and the likes of them in time before it’s too late (see Venezuela). All these mentally challenged people dream of is a world of equal misery for all mankind (except for themselves in control, of course!).
And here we are in 2022 it doesn't look good!
A quarter of UK population live in poverty (before Cost of Living Crisis).
They have the misery they just don't have the fair sharing out of essentials that Rationing provides.
There was no rationing in WW1 and the rich had as much as they wanted while the poor starved and were turfed out of their rented accommodation if their breadwinner died in the trenches.
The government were prepared for WW2!with Rationing because they needed high moral for industrial output.
Presumably they don't need us now or they'd take better care. Were just "unproductive eaters"
I was born in 1946 one of the baby boomer children and remember rationing and taking the ration book with me to the shops when doing errands for Mom. Towards the end of rationing I remember my first banana, and my first large orange they came in a small bag of fruit from grandma, the paper bag usually contained two or three items of what ever was in season.
I was born in England in 1948.I remember a 3rd or maybe 4th birthday party. As a gift from a boy up the street he gave me an orange, I believe it was my first orange.I know that it was rationed as my mother told me & said that it was precious. I’ve been to orange groves in Southern Italy & Florida & have never tasted an orange that was so good. 🇨🇦🇬🇧
I remember sweet rationing
I too was a '46 boomer, hardly saw my father he was ether in work or down the pub. Looking back I realised I was just a pest that had to be tolerated.
what this doesn't show is later in the war when the shops were half empty, because so many foods were imported (flour, sugar, meat) and the merchant marine was bombed by the Germans on their way to the UK - you got 2 ounces of meat per person, per week, if you were lucky and could find a butcher's shop with a supply. I didn't know what an orange or pineapple was until I was about 10 - and sugar was pretty much unavailable, still rationed in 1950. Tough times, but we got through it.
I949 here. I remember powdered egg.
@@usuk9316 I still have my mother's old wartime cookery book (The Be-Ro Cook book) where they talk about "one egg - reconstituted" and something called soyghetti.
@@Thepourdeuxchanson oh that's a treasure to have of your Mother's. Times were tough but we were happy.
Stay stay.
Yes, the film says everyone can get their ration limits of everything but that was far from the truth as the war went on (at least according to the experts who ran "1940's House").
@@emjayay I knew that the amounts went down over time, and that you couldn't save stamps week to week, but I didn't know actual shortages on rationed goods happened. I'll have to look into that further. Thanks.
It's amazing to see the spirit of cooperation. I love how people passed the time waiting in line by conversing. These days it seems that people would rather use having to wait for anything as an excuse to act despicably toward others if to acknowledge them at all.
I consider myself fortunate to not see much in the way of people acting despicably toward each other in line at places. There's not much conversation among people in lines, that I've observed, unless 2 or 3 people are there together, but 99% of what I observe is people minding their own business (often occupied by an activity on their electronic device), and the occasional complaint of one's wait time (which I've observed since I was a kid in the 70s). People will sometimes observe a person who has far fewer items than they do, and let that person go ahead of them; I've done this when I've had 10+ items, and another person had 3 or 4 items; I have been on the receiving end of this kindness, as well.
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!
Bet they're laughing now
I am not American, but my grandma taught me that if you have good amount supplies of onions, flour and sugar in the house, then you won’t see hunger. Also I would add potatoes, since they are cheap and versitile and tasty. You can do a lot with them. We used to make a lot of preservaties of cucumbers, sweet pumpkins and apples and cherries too in syrup, which were really awesome to have during winter months. We also made all of our own jams and juices too (cranberry juice, apple juice and so on). I think that saved us a lot of money and saved us from hunger. I am happy we have our own piece of land, where we can grow everything, not many people have that luxury.
I live in a town that has a Mormon college in it; guess that explains why the store shelves are ALWAYS empty.
I think its a very sensible thing to have food stored for bad times and although not Mormon I do and always have a pantry full of food - long shelf life foods. I think we may be heading to a time where all should be doing this and will be grateful they did.
hoarding isn't the goal either. that's selfish.
What is the greatest feeling of all?
That is putting a smile on another's face.
Hello from Russia.
Thanks!
We had ration books here in the U.S. too. Milk, Butter, Eggs, Flour,…and of course petrol/gasoline.
People would swap, if your neighbor needed a cake you might trade flour and sugar. Rationing during WWII.
No rationing in Canada ...
My mom was in school during the war. Here in the US, the motto was "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without".
It's true that British assets were sold at ,'Fire Sale', prices.
I think the UK finished paying back Lend Lease bills a year or two ago.
One of very very few who did... Like it or not, we are deeply related the Brits & Americans... & we need to continue to care for & about one another.
@@3rdoldhen Agreed, now more than ever, sadly the panic and desperation soon will try to prevent that, I've seen on deployment what hungry people are capable of, soon the entire west will face it and millions if not billions will die, just as the elites planned.
Must have been a nightmare having to queue for hours especially if you also had to do war work AND housework. Not sure how they had the energy! especially on such meagre rations.
+Rayon Bizarre People in Venezuela are finding this out right now. Look for videos of Venezuela and food and you'll see how shitty it gets.
More sleep for some and many healthy foods were not rationed, thus they could buy more of those items and be filled up. Though when watching films and such like these we only see the harder points to drill it in to us. Though there were many that did have hard times.
I didn't realise. Wouldn't wish such conditions on anyone
Growing up in Northumberland I know that the war wasn't that stressful for my nana, as her father had an allotment with pigs and chickens. Still, with clothes and petrol etc being rationed too it must have been pretty grim especially in the south.
True but it must have been difficult for some to get a sufficient amount of protein. I'm sure there were those that were driven to exhaustion living on veg and powdered egg.
MY MOM TOLD ME THAT NEWS OF FOOD ARRIVING IN THE SHOPS (ANY FOOD) SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE. THEY WOULD DROP WHATEVER THEY WERE DOING AND DASH THERE. THERE WAS NO GARANTEE OF FOOD AVAILABLE, BY THE TIME YOU REACHED THE COUNTER EITHER. HOW DISHEARTENING IS THAT. SHE SAID SHE'D JOIN ANY QUEUE WHILE PASSING, IN CASE SHE WAS SUCCESSFULL. ON TOP OF ALL THE OTHER ANXIETIES, WHAT A GENERATION.
I feel sad for my relatives who had to do this. They survived with a war going on & so will we without a war.
No, we do not say 'candy' in england, we would say 'sweets'. :-)
They probably needed to translate for the intended audience
and we use butter not budder
Australia we call lollies
@@beliver6230 cough
@@kuchikopi4631 ya got corona mate hope your wearing ya mask 😜
Thanks again you guys and girls for helping keeping us supplied during the early days of the war and throughout. 🇬🇧🇺🇸
@SuperdryDanny. At considerable profit to themselves.
@@donaldhoult7713 well yeah, the UK would have done the same thing if the situation was reversed :/ why complain
I was born in 1945 so just after the war, as a baby wasn’t aware of the rationing . Loved this video, have seen others but this has so much interesting information. ❤
No you weren't. I saw your birthday card that said Happy 98th birthday Gramma. Stop your story telling in public.
@@coloradostrong ok
My grandparents lived in Cumbria and they had an allotment. They kept chickens for eggs and meat and two pigs. Mum said they got extra rations for one of the pigs which had to be given to the butcher when fattened up. Neighbours contributed their scraps - mostly vegetable peelings - in return for being at the front of the queue for eggs and meat. Apparently my gran and grandad were very popular people cos although others had allotments grandad was a farmer's son and knew how to keep livestock.
What actually made the whole British WWII rationing system up close and personal for me (an American) was watching "Dad's Army" and Ruth Goodman's "Wartime Farm" series.
Both of those are great, Dad's army is a classic.
This never gets old, I watch this at least a few times a year! 😀
why?
Even in the nightmare of the war, British ladies still kept elegant life. It’s admirable
True! They didn’t have much, yet they stayed classy and elegant! Unlike NOW where they have access to everything you could dream of and still have no class
@@kathyh4804 well not all of them
Modern British ladies have everything and want to do nothing while having everything. Maybe disciple or another war is what they need
@@gogagahihigo1545 Its the men who lost their self respect. If men went after young and elegant ladies like they used to then all the useless ones would wise up quick.
When the demand for stable relationships and families go up and the demand for quick fun goes down, the western world will be fixed.
Unfortunately that won't happen because more and more of the incoming men are raised by single moms so they will be almost 100% doomed to having zero standards and manliness.
@@resentfuldragon Okay, incel.
Yes! Things were very hard with rationing. My family were four people and allowed half pound of butter a week. Mother divided it into four and put each on to a pretty plate so it looked more! You never saw a fat person they would be viewed suspiciously!! I’m 93 years old now so I’m not a bad result of going without some food!😊
This video really makes me appreciate my daily food more and not complaining about anything :|
I still think that the whole planet needs to restore rationing.
@@WarhammerWings yes because you're evil. pure and simple. you belong on a list with the other socialists.
They were meant to be rosy about the whole thing it’s a propaganda film.
2022 Looks like we'll be heading this way again.
Sugar was rationed until 1954...
No wonder my dad was so short compared to me. He was born in 1919 , lived through the depression and entered the Army in 1939.After getting through the the war he came back home to this.
Same as my dad.... born in Bootle Liverpool in 1919, his dad died in 1930 (at the height of "the Great Depression") from a WW1 wound when dad was 11 years old, so he was out to work from the age of 14 to bring in money to help feed the family (working mum with 2 younger brothers & no welfare state) then over 6 years of PROPER frontline service in the Royal navy from 1939 to 1946, and then back home to this for another 8 years.
He was "very careful" with money and other things all his life... and as kids we used to think of him as a bit of a mean "skinflint", but it was only as you grew up that you began to appreciate the struggles and hardships he'd had the misfortunes to live through. He passed away in 2013 aged 93 and we still miss him every day.
l can totally relate to that. My old man joined the Royal Engineers and was trained in explosives but in reality he was an infantryman . He fought in North Africa and then got shipped to Burma to stop the Jap offensive on India. As kids we had hand me downs for ever and jumble sales were always there for shoes and more. Me and my brothers did think he was a miser but looking back now he did the best for us as because our mum died early through MS.
I remember mum thumping a piece of whale meat on the back steps, trying to tenderise it before cooking. Nan made custard with saccharine or black treacle because of rationing. If I had been good, dad would give the ration book to go buy 2 oz sweets. Apparently, I was 6 before I saw a real egg or banana. Bread and dripping, spam, corned beef. Still enjoy it.
Whale meat? Where did they ge that from? wow must ask my mum if she ever ate whale meat in the war.
Norway.
Along with rendered whale fat oil used in quenching steel in Sheffield.
Linda T Norway
.My dad bought some and fried it. Big, big mistake. Far to oily and was inedible.
I can remember whale meat. It was a very pale colour, and had little taste. It was sometimes served in "British Restaurants" which were a chain of government restaurants.
There was a joke during the war. It's a Vera Lyn meal, Whale meat again!"
My father remembers ration books in Ireland as well growing up in the 40s
Two years after this they started rationing bread as well, something which hadn't been rationed throughout the war.
prove it
@@jasonvoorhees5640 What a weird thing to say. If you want to see if it's true, look it up.
@@jasonvoorhees5640I can vouch for that statement as I lived thru the 50s born in the 30s. Not rationed during but was after the war. As someone suggests, look it up and learn.
@@Gmackematix
liar
@@anthonyeaton5153 liar
We all could be reliving this soon.
Bread and dripping - so good. I thought eggs were only dried, never saw a real one until we got a couple of chickens in the back yard. OMG I forgot about whale meat - bloody awful stuff.
I only realised recently that eggs are the last thing I think to buy., My father worked in an iron foundry, very strenuous hard work, my mother used to give him all the eggs.The one consolation was we had my Dad at home with us.
I used to love Bread and Dripping! I had some at a WW2 travel re-creation on the 'Watercress line' in Hampshire, I was tucking in with enthusiasm, but most of the other passengers were rather dubious about it...
I loved powdered egg. Christmas was the only time we had the aroma of roast chicken wafting through the house, although my mum or my nan could work miracles with the cheaper cuts of beef. Homemade oxtail stew, and even tripe and onions - which is still one of my favorite meals (although the wife hates it with a vengeance). My dislikes were: spam, rabbit stew, Pom powdered potato. Sausages that were full of bread, a bit of gristle and pork belly, and tons of spices to disguise the foul taste. Favourite summer drink was Tizer with ice cream floater. As long as I got my weekly comic papers at the weekend, (Beano, Dandy and Radio Fun (later Film Fun), I was a happy little bunny. And of course, dashing home from school to get the latest Dick Tracy episode on the radio - all part of those memorable days.
What about horse meat? I never touched it but my aunt used to eat the steak.
@@pegjones7682 My Nan used to go to the horse meat shop at the bottom of Acre Lane in Brixton. She used to buy Milts (an offal) for our cats. Hated the smell of it cooking. Never actually ate horse meat though. I have heard it is a bit sweet.
Ah! This is such an epic film even straight from the beginning. "For tea is as precious to a British worker, as coffee is to an American."
I'd be happily trading my coffee for others' tea. I'm American born and raised, but never developed a liking or tolerance for coffee, and I love tea. Most of my ancestors came from countries surrounding the North Sea, including 47% from Scotland, so I guess my DNA is infused with tea. 😊
This film was made for the American public explaining the effects of rationing and basically how the landlease agreement benefitted the British hence the prices being in US dollars and certain terms changed for the benefit of the American public.
Did you know it was only a couple of years ago we paid our war debt back to America through the land lease agreement and we had to let the USA use our naval base at Bermuda I think it's until 2025 .
+NeoFalcon69 I have no doubt about that. It's an American narrator and it's about British rationing. It's a propaganda film, but too bad Americans wouldn't wake up and smell the coffee, as it were. If we had aided the British, imagine how quickly the war would have ended. More lives would have been saved.
Our government was acting very much like the Obamanation we have now. It disgusts me.
+magnoliasouth Not our war. In fact, many were agitating for war AGINST Britain. Don't forget, we've gone to war twice aginst the English.
we did aid britan in ww2
UK paid back Lend Lease in 2005.
Hence, Victory Gardens
The modern generation just wouldn't be able to cope. Thank you mum. What a grand job you did for us.
I think what they got was still enough food and because the clothes and shoes were good quality and they taught you to mend for yourself i wouldn't mind waiting for the coupons, i always wait to save and hold onto money anyway for something i might need and when i buy things i buy something that's good quality so it lasts forever i think they had better even if they had to ration better quality everything and that's how it should have stayed.
For reals you don't have to buy anything for a long long time if not ever if you look for quality, my fitted bed sheets are cotton and wash really well and there's been no thinning same with the pillowcases i got with them which i got from B&M 7 years ago and a bargain cos it was £5.99 a set, the furniture i buy is good quality and even pencils i buy the red HB Pencils which last longer than the really cheapo ones and sharpen better too :D i can see the beauty of their time and why you can save SO much money if you don't have to keep buying things.
That's correct , they wouldn't know what to do with raw ingredients 😂😂😂😂😂😂 they think sweetcorn comes in tins😂😂😂😂😂😂🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Nonsense. That's more than enough food. And she gets a new winter coat every year? My coats atleast 5 years old. Sounded kinda spoiled to me. The lines looked sucky tho.
If this sort of thing happened in the modern day I would support the enemy. Screw socialism and screw rationing.
No obesserty in them days 🙄
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing it!
Interesting! Considering the shortages we are having now! God bless all
This reminds me of a famous photograph taken when rationing was first repelled and showed a group of kids running into a sweet shop to experience something they had never experienced before
Gorging 😅
Did you see how small "the roast" was? Holy crap, we ARE disgustingly overwhelmed with "luxe" CRAP.
A lot of people think rationing ended as the war ended. My wife was born in 1953, eight years after the end of the war, but was issued with a ration card at birth; we still have it.
These videos are all most important. I love all them
Hardship builds strength...Something we desperately need in today's world.
Couldn't agree more .
If you went through trauma and turned out alright , then you okay with others enduring trauma. Then you did not in fact turn out alright!
@@NeilCWCampbell That is not what he is referring to. He is talking about personal strength.
Hard times. Hope we never have them again.
@Tyler Eyerly Well-stated. I too believe we are on the verge of hard times.
Well we have food banks today, quite a few are on hard times and have been for quite awhile. also, you see more charity shops in the high street too
Sadly your hope was in vain now with covid-19 and all that.
2020: Covid19 says hi
We had rationing cards in the USA in WWII but probably had more food than in Britain. My parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII. My dad was in the US army and worked another job some years. My mother also worked. I was born in 1948. My respect to the British and Irish, great sacrifices and services during WWII. Kenneth, from Texas
You definitely had more food than Britain.
Fascinating! I was born in the north of England in 1949. So I don't really remember rationing very much. Though rationing wasn't completely over in the UK till 1954, when I was six.
As a Canadian, my grandfather fought in the war for the Canadian forces and told me the hell he saw when they landed on Juno beach in Normandy and took heavy casualties. 5000 Canadians joined the assault force and 3,367 became casualties including 907 killed in action and 1,946 made POW. When my Grandfather seen the movie Saving Private Ryan shortly before he passed away he said the carnage, violence that was shown and people being blown up and mowed down by machine gun fire was completely accurate right down to soldiers dragging themselves on the beach with half there body blown off. Scary stuff.
Lovely to see no plastic bags. I can remember my mum brining home the shopping in her basket. Cheese and meat wrapped in greaseproof, loose sugar, tea and biscuits in paper. No plastic drinks bottles either. We survived so why is everything wrapped in plastic now?
Now, i know the rationing details, thanks a lot for uploading this
Born in 1947, l remember the hard times of rationing. My mother grew potatoes, carrots, onions, cauliflower & other vegetables. She also kept chickens in the garden. My younger brother and l collected blackberries from the shunting yard area of the nearby railway. We always ate well. 🍗🍞🍛🍝She worked as a turner machining parts for tanks and ships also, (before l was born). Hard times indeed.
My mum was still using powdered egg to make cakes with after the war.We lived in the East End of London,in a tenement.I think kids did fair better in the countryside as they could snare rabbits,have chickens,ect.The black market thrived.My mum would use teabags to darken her legs,and draw a seam down her leg in kohl to make it look like stockings.I think they are rather well in the war,it had to stretch.nowadays we just take food for granted and waste so much.
Recommended to me just in time for the COVID19 pandemic.... such helpful algorithim...👌
His friend is a hoarder. His friend is astute and doesn't have a sweet tooth.
England made all bakeries make the National loaf of bread. It was brown bread that wasn't very tasty as it have alot of the wheat chaff still in it. They were rationed about 14-15 yrs. Too long. Brave, invented and strong ppl.
Agreed.
I can remember enjoying eating bread. Born 1938. I t was much better than the bread you buy today, it's got no taste.
Now, in the United States, you pay twice as much for that sort of bread.
Many housewives sieved the national flour, then used the wheatgerm/chaff as chicken feed. What an enterpising lot they were!
People didn't like the national loaf but it was very good for you.
I remember those days and indeed experienced them and it was tough going .Unless of course you had friends in the black market as then you could get anything you liked at a price of course.It lasted until 1954 which was a great relief,
Watched this in School today so Interesting!
" A large consignment of Jaffa oranges has arrived at Salford Docks and there will be an allocation of one pound per ration book in the city shops at the new controlled price of 7d. a pound.
There was no official news of any other fruit, dried fruit or nuts for Christmas.
The first consignment of bananas will be reserved for children and young people, but they will not reach the country until January."
( Salford City Reporter, December 14, 1945)
I was born in 1947, and even as a 6 year old I remember the rationing. In fact, rationing got tighter when the war ended, because the US then had to feed the ravaged continent of Europe as well as the long suffering Brits. As I recall sweets were the last items to be rationed
What an informative informercial. I love this.
How timely!
an interesting look back on our history.
my goodness, soo humble they were❤️
I stumbled across this and thought it was a WEF promotional film for the UK in 2030.
The people are dressed beautifully, so much better than today. And this is a war time… Everybody is dressed properly and decently. Excellent quality of the clothes. Now we struggle to buy some necessary clothes or footwear- it is just a rubbish: the materials, and the shape doesn’t match human body and a foot
My grandmother went though this and they survived by eating rabbit and kept pigs.
michael616joaquin boyfriend’s grandfather told us stories about hunting and eating wild game, like rabbit, badger, wild birds, and venison. Even made us roasted rabbit.
In the UK they seized all the farm animals - pigs, cows, etc.
@@the-chipette they were encouraged to keep rabbits and then eat them.
The kid who saved and later swapped his sweets for his friend’s saving stamps is a shrewd businessman.
Lived in London 1952 and 53--aged 8 and 9. Some elements of wartime rationing were still in effect. School lunch every day was potatoes, a boiled veg, slice of bread, rice pudding with a dollop of jam. On Fridays a tablespoon of cheese was added to the spuds. Pretty slim pickings.
Thanks for sharing!
I was born in 1950 and before rationing finished I was going to the local grocer (by myself) to shop for the family (using coupons). I think I was four. Different times.
This was very interesting. One thing came to mind as Mrs. Green was getting her weekly supplies, was that i would have done to stretch out the butter ration. Was to mix some of it with the margarine. Improving the favor of it too.
@Mr S. Most people did so. I doubt if you have seen or tasted National Margarine. Hard as rock , it nonetheless melted quite rapidly into something resembling cooking oil. Apply heat carefully or all you got was unusable except for cooking. I know this very well for I received a number of beatings in the orphanage because I had been ' careless '.
@@donaldhoult7713
that sounds very dickensian 😳
we live in North America, and i can remember my grandma's stories about how this was practiced here, including victory gardens and collection of meat drippings
My great grandmother told that she got her very first job during the war. Her and my great grandfather were married barely a month before he was shipped off. She got her first job at a factory she knew then and there she didn’t want to be a house wife
that sounds made up
Some things weren't rationed. My Nan used to tell of how if a barrage balloon ever came down, it was set upon by hoards of ladies armed with scissors to make into silk bloomers or nighties and such like. No coupons needed as long as you didn't get caught. My dads family were also petty smugglers who hid their wares in their garden under the veggies.
Hellfire Corner, aka Dover.
Amazing application of Brylcreem! He always wore it but I don't remember it being as shiny as it is in this film - I reckon you could use it as a mirror!
Vitalis
My late husband grew up during the second world war and he told me all about the rationing of food: powdered eggs, two ounces of tea per person a week, etc. His mother still had ration books in her sideboard drawer when I met her in 1972!
My dad used to blame his impatience on being sent out for the rations. He especially didn't like queues. He came to New Zealand in 1947 and rationing ended here in 1950. He was shocked to find it lasted until 1954 in the UK.
Robert Nelson. The nation was bankrupt and feeding its erstwhile enemies.
@@donaldhoult7713
erstwhile enemies?
@@jasonvoorhees5640 Former enemies. Like Germany.
I knew about the food rationing, but I didn't know everything was rationed even clothing....
They had special ration shoes ! (made of rope, etc)
It’s gone to multiculturalism, it’s now racist to be proud of English culture and customs.
@@AbbyGirl11 It's not actually racist, that's just what some lunkheads are calling it, trying to make everyone believe. We don't have to accept their idiotic judgements.
I really don’t know what my Mother did with the food coupons . My sister and I were evacuated for fours years. When we came back home in 1945 .we never sat down to regular meals. We had what was called a-scullery . Really old cooking stove, no cooking utensils . Nothing ? Parents were out working all the time..no wonder we had so many things wrong with us as we got older , I know. They did there best for us, but I am sure ,under the circumstances they got the worst end of managing the little money they had , through little education conditions of the times we lived through and being at the lower class of society. They were good working class people caught up in a world of war and greed . Life is a Lottery of Birth Station and Luck . I look back and can see there lives of drudgery , but by god they were the salt of the earth and I salute them , admire them and I would not have changed them , for I learnt all the good things that they taught me. That money cannot buy.
May Hampton, it sounds like you were raised correctly even if times were difficult. Money buys ease but money doesn't buy integrity, compassion or wisdom. Blessings to you.
Watching this in Aug 2022. People might have to survive this again.
I wouldn't mind ... I generally have 2 meals sometimes 1 meal a day. This point system would be more than enough for me.
I recall the ration business in the early 1940s
The first words I learned to spell were CROSSE & BLACKWELL!
Americans had it easy not only because we weren't an island surrounded by U-boats, but also because the average American had more resources at his disposal to get extra food on his own. The American family's house was much more likely to include a sizeable yard where veggies could be grown in summer and canned. And if they didn't own a gun to hunt with, they knew someone who did, and every American had access to state game lands. The family that aggressively gardened and hunted (or fished, or trapped) could gather themselves a significant amount of food over the year. Of course that didn't help with gas or tires (a big deal) but it was something.
Yeah, but not everybody lived in area's like that. Many had gardens, true. But fishing and hunting? No.
You Americans never heard of the good old British slogan " Dig for Victory " British people turned over their beloved gardens into vegetable gardens for the duration.
Some of America was surrounded by water. Hawaii and other territories.
@@alisonsmith4801 Victory Gardens were a big thing in the US at that time.
The health statistics belie the onus of deprivation during WWII in Britain. Chronic illnesses declined during the war. It was several years after the war before they returned to prewar levels.
Your dad looks a lovely person! You must feel very proud of him.