Fair Shares For Us All (15 July 1978)

I was rummaging the other day when I came upon a ration book issued in respect of my son for the period May 17, 1953, to May 15, 1954, when he was four to five years old.  Most of the coupons for sugar, bacon, cheese, fats, eggs and meat are missing, indicating, perhaps that they had still to be used some eight to nine years after the end of the war.  Otherwise, the book is pretty well intact, including the coupons for sweets.

Sweets were taken off the ration shortly before either my son’s birthday or Christmas, I forget which. His capacity for eating and liking sweets had been limited by their rationing and he had been looking forward to receiving the usual medley of interesting small gifts from various people.  But on this occasion everybody hit on what must have seemed to them the bright idea of giving him sweets and his face grew longer and longer as nearly every small parcel opened contained nothing but sweets.  It put him off sweets for years and even today he will not touch a sweet cake or tart or biscuit of any description.

I am sure that our main habits and tastes are thus formed by experiences so early in life that we barely remember them, if at all.  Yet they are of lasting effect.  For instance, I recently read a review of a new book about Henry Ford, the American car magnate.  According to this, Ford never knew what to do with his money once his expenses were paid.  His wife eventually coaxed him into spending two million dollars on a country estate and mansion.

“And yet Henry’s personal tastes were abstemious,” says the review.  “He abhorred alcohol and served his guests grape juice. His idea of a good meal was stew.  And he liked to be served boiled potatoes with their skins on.  He disliked entertaining and liked to retire by ten at night.”

By inference, we are invited to be surprised that a man who had so much money should not want to live in what probably most people would regard as a befitting style.  Well, I for one am not surprised.  Ford was the son of an immigrant Irishman and no doubt had known the time early in life when an occasional good stew, plus potatoes with their skins on, came as ambrosia.  No matter how much his outward circumstances might change, his innards simply could not change.  The pattern was already established and not all the cordon bleu cookery in the world could alter it.

The same applies to other aspects of “life style” as well as food.  When the Daily Mirror was soaring to the heights of circulation success it was managed by a man named Bartholomew.  The story goes that on one occasion he was invited up to Manchester to a function featuring the Lord Mayor and other dignitaries.  He was booked in at some hotel splendiferous where the function was to be held and was installed in his room.  But when the time came for him to make an appearance he was neither there nor thereabouts.  After a hectic search he was found in a tiny room at the bottom of the building, sitting in his shirt sleeves, enjoying a mug of tea and a chat with the janitor and quite oblivious to the passage of time.

You see, “Bart” was a Cockney.  He had spent many years at the Mirror, starting in the rank of tea boy or equivalent.  He knew the newspaper game all right, but he was short on airs and graces and felt more at home in the janitor’s den and drinking the janitor’s tea than he would have felt anywhere upstairs.

Now I find that, as usual, I have drifted away from my subject, which had something to do with rationing during and after the second world war.  When that war broke out many people, including the government, still vividly remembered what had happened as regards food supplies during the first world war.

That war began in August, 1914, and ended in November, 1918.  For the first three years the available supplies of food were distributed on a catch-as-catch-can basis.  There was a mounting clamour for fair shares, but it was not until 1917 that rationing began and even then it was confined to sugar.  The order for the rationing of other foods was not made until 1918 and only then did the clamour cease.

Consequently, rationing was imposed from the start of the second world war and its local administration was through committees nominated by district councils.

Bletchley’s food control committee held their first meeting on September 11, 1939, only a little over a week after the declaration of war.  The majority of the committee were consumer representatives, but there were also four trade reps, plus a Co-operative trade rep, and a trade employees’ rep.  Mr. Harry Dimmock was the first chairman and others who served throughout the period up to 1947 were Mrs. C E Mercer, Mr. E E Callaway (a former police superintendent), Mr. Oliver Wells and Mr. J D Bushell.

The first good executive officer was Mr. R L Sherwood, the Council’s clerk, but Mr. John Elliott, from Windsor, took it over as a full-time job in July 1941.  This followed a surprise announcement made late in May by the government that as from June 1, all clothing, cloth, footwear and knitting wool would be rationed (with a few exceptions) as well as food.  The issues would be made on a points system and for this the margarine coupons in the current ration book would be used, one coupon equalling one point.  Up to then, margarine had not been rationed.

Eventually, the original staff swelled to eight and they dealt not only with food, clothing and other materials, but also with welfare foods.  Expectant mothers and children under five were entitled to free cod liver oil and A and D tablets and could have a pint of milk a day at 1.5d a pint and a bottle of orange juice for 5d.

It is a sobering thought that in the world today there are millions of people who would rejoice at having all we had in our worst days of rationing.