Anybody here old enough to remember Ration books in the UK?

[peterpop]

I don't remember anyone complaining about rationing.  I remember my uncle sending me to the shop with the ration book and told me to get 2 oz elbow grease !  I always had my sweet ration and knew exactly how much it would buy.  I think the whole of UK was underfed  by today's standards.  I just do not remember any fat kids.

[Gillyflower]

I wasn't in the UK, but I do remember them in Australia.

 

There is a wonderful story about Winston Churchill and rationing.  People were complaining about how little meat they were able to have.  Churchill was informed and told his advisers to serve him up the ration for his next meal.  When he had finished he said rather testily, that he found the ration perfectly adequate and he didn't know what the Brits were complaining about.  "but Mr. Prime Minister, you have just eaten the whole month's ration."

 

 

[Gillyflower]

41 minutes ago, toofarnorth said:

Cod liver oil , don't know about that , but I did like Cod liver oil and malt , came out the tin like treacle .  Bottles of milk at school , had to be put on the radiators to thaw out , in the summer warm and disgusting.  I feel sure those of us around 70 years are less picky with their food because as youngsters we ate what we were told too !

Only thing I never understood was sprouts with Xmas dinner.  No one liked them but there they were . I still don't care for cabbage.

If I had known I would have sent you mine.  I had to be held under whilst they poured the bloody stuff down my throat.

[jesimps]

Yes, me. Although I was only ever interested in the sweet coupons.

[JAG]

3 hours ago, CharlieH said:

I can remember petrol rationing in early 70's i think it was.

 

 

There was talk of petrol rationing during the 1973 fuel crisis - sparked by the Yom Kippur War between Egypt/Syria and Israel, but it was never implemented. Rationing and coupons were implemented in the mid 1950s following the Suez crisis. During the 1973 crisis, a very parsimonious neighbour (she used to collect everyone's old newspapers to cut out any coupons or 'special offer adverts") unearthed a supply of petrol coupons which she had from Suez! The joke amongst all the parents down the cul-de-sac (we were jolly posh) was that she thought that she could use them this time round!

[Krataiboy]

On 4/26/2020 at 11:10 AM, ezzra said:

I fought in the first the boer war, God i'm so bored...

Boredom is one of the fringe benefits of being free. Be thankful to those forebears who fought and died to preserve this human right for you.

[allanos]

Some great stories here.  I was also a baby boomer, so rationing was still around for a few years after and I am old enough to remember it. Petrol in particular. Rationing was difficult but I believe the British people were in much better health than they are today.   Interestingly, bread was not rationed during the war but the Labour Party introduced it in 1946. I loved the concentrated orange juice, I recall.  I pity the folk living in London during the war.  Lots of kids were evacuated.  Just before I was born our home was bombed with a Luftwaffe incendiary bomb and my parents' bedroom was burnt out.  Fortunately, nobody was home at the time. 

[geronimo]

I recall petrol rationing in 1972, if that counts.

[Kalasin Jo]

Just! I was born in December 1951 and my parents had a ration book for me which was used. I still have one from that era. Also one from the petrol rationing of 1970 (?) 

[Krataiboy]

2 hours ago, Gandtee said:

My two years old brother had just come out of hospital after recovering from diptheria 1943, when the doodlebugs were hitting London. She asked the old boy who kept laying chickens, to sell her an egg, for him. He refused. The miserable old sod. Times were hard then. Especially for the mothers who were raising their children and being bombed while their men were off at the war. They were the heros in my opinion.

They were heroines, not heroes. Heroes are men. And don't let any rabid feminist bully you into thinking otherwise.

[worgeordie]

2 hours ago, Gandtee said:

Malt and cod liver oil? Dried eggs and spam from the US. Dried potatoes (Pom?)in school dinners. Horrible stuff! Whale meat and snoek sometimes which was not on ration. 

Cod liver oil,I knew there was one I did not like,swallow it down quick.

that one must have been to prevent Rickets.

regards worgeordie 

[Krataiboy]

Below is a list of how many coupons it took to buy men's and boys' clothing until when rationing ended in March, 1949. It's from a little online book I put together about life during the war, which started a year after I was born (Timing was never my forte!).

 

I'm leaving it as keepsake for my daughter (now aged 13) in the (probably vain) hope that one day she might one day get off her smartphone for long enough consider dipping into it. Hopefully, it will help her appreciate how lucky she was to have been born during a more peaceful era.

 

I also managed to cobble together a two-hour documentary on the same subject, but for her that might be - to borrow from the title of one of the better war movies - a bridge too far. . . 

 

[Gandtee]

50 minutes ago, Krataiboy said:

They were heroines, not heroes. Heroes are men. And don't let any rabid feminist bully you into thinking otherwise.

I was aware that heros would draw remarks from the pedantic. Or were you attempting humour?

[Krataiboy]

4 minutes ago, Gandtee said:

I was aware that heros would draw remarks from the pedantic. Or were you attempting humour?

This is nothing to do with being pedantic. It is about resisting the hijacking of our language by so-called progressives armed with a political agenda. English is too beautiful to have soiled by their grubby little hands.

[sandyf]

3 hours ago, toofarnorth said:

Cod liver oil , don't know about that , but I did like Cod liver oil and malt , came out the tin like treacle .  Bottles of milk at school , had to be put on the radiators to thaw out , in the summer warm and disgusting.  I feel sure those of us around 70 years are less picky with their food because as youngsters we ate what we were told too !

Only thing I never understood was sprouts with Xmas dinner.  No one liked them but there they were . I still don't care for cabbage.

Think you are right about eating habits. One thing about the post war years, although we very little money we ate 3 times a day, even if it was just bread and jam. My father grew rhubarb and we picked brambles for the jam.

Winter was sprout season, something else we grew, can remember picking them covered in frost.

He also kept chickens but always boiled them, never knew you roasted chicken until I joined the RAF.

[ChipButty]

Couldn't wait for the pop man to come down our street a bit later 50's 

[PETERTHEEATER]

On 4/26/2020 at 11:10 AM, ezzra said:

I fought in the first the boer war, God i'm so bored...

"When we fought the blighters at Spionkop they couldn't write their bloody names!"