Courtenay wrote: ↑21 Nov 2023, 15:30Five Go Off to Camp was first published in 1948, three years after the war ended, but of course rationing remained in place for some years even after that
I always wondered how rationing worked for farmers. Were there inspectors who would investigate them if they didn't supply X eggs. Y gallons of milk etc each week or month?
Could you give away a lettuce or pound of butter to a neighbour or passing traveller?
I don't know all the details of rationing but fruit and vegetables weren't rationed (though they were often in short supply), so it would have been okay to dispense lettuces.
I'm currently reading Dangerous Treasure by Norman Dale (1944). Two boys from London, Peter and Ginger, are staying on a farm in the countryside for the duration of the war and we're told that the farmer, Mr. Mellon, "had a good car and as much petrol as he needed (being a farmer)" - a reminder that petrol wasn't rationed for people in certain occupations.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
I've read various accounts where farmers and their family/friends often did a bit better food-wise than others as they could eat their own produce without using rations. Just like if you lived in a city and kept chickens, you could eat their eggs freely on top of your one egg a week ration.
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.
I think it is easy to imagine that, if you produce the food yourself, you're in a good place as far as supplies are concerned. Having said that the farmers had inspectors and if they didn't produce 'enough' they could be replaced with other, government appointed, farmers. The country needed food! I'm basing this on the excellent British TV series "Wartime Farm".
Maybe a tenuous connection. But in The Sea of Adventure the children discover the baddies are gun running, one of them immediately suggests they're probably from South America. Was that a fair assumption to make at the time? I don't know what world affairs were like in the years following the War. But I know now that South America had a kind of notoriety for letting escaping Nazis flee to, so perhaps Enid was getting at a sort of knock on effect from WWII?
Yes, I thought of that too when I first read that book (as an adult). And then in the following book, The Mountain of Adventure, the head villain has a German name and his henchmen are Japanese (with terrible stereotypical accents ) — very obvious nationalities to pick for the bad guys, only a few years after WW2.
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It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
As far as rationing goes, it was severe. Even if you had the ration cards to spare, sweets weren't always there to be had. My mother remembers that the choice of sweet if you had a spare ha'penny was either a stick of liquorice, or a carrot. Nothing else on offer. (Neither was rationed.)
They could still get chips, though. She had tuppence worth of chips most days. Healthy living! Fish and chips wasn't rationed.
And if you had an apple at school, the rule was that the owner of the apple had to leave a bit for her best friend, and that girl had to leave the core for the next best friend. The stalk and pips were left uneaten.
I know that restaurant food was not rationed either which caused some resentment as most people could not afford to eat out with any regularity. Apparently they made a rule that you could not have meat AND fish in the same meal but still.
Most were (from memory) called 'British Restaurants' and were set up by councils around the country, Most of their customers were shop and office workers or families bombed out of their homes,
You might have got something like Vegetable Soup, Shepherd's Pie and some cheap pudding like Jelly or Custard.
dsr wrote: ↑26 Nov 2023, 01:28
As far as rationing goes, it was severe. Even if you had the ration cards to spare, sweets weren't always there to be had. My mother remembers that the choice of sweet if you had a spare ha'penny was either a stick of liquorice, or a carrot. Nothing else on offer. (Neither was rationed.)
They could still get chips, though. She had tuppence worth of chips most days. Healthy living! Fish and chips wasn't rationed.
And if you had an apple at school, the rule was that the owner of the apple had to leave a bit for her best friend, and that girl had to leave the core for the next best friend. The stalk and pips were left uneaten.
That reminds me of a story my Granny used to tell.
Apparently one year there was a particular vicious sort of disease that effected onions, which, being a British grown veg took them by surprise, and there was hardly an onion to be found round them.
One person put an onion in to the village fair to be auctioned, and the winning bid was over £2.
Apparently they cut the onion into 1/6th and gave the bits to their friends, and everyone was delighted to have their sixth.
Enid Blyton says it all about rationing from a child's point of view in the 'Salute to the Children' in my post-war Daily Mail Annual, starting with the first four lines:
'There's no ice-cream for you to eat,
No sugar biscuits, crisp and sweet,
No quivering jelly, all a-shake,
Not a single creamy cake'
and that's just the beginning ....
dsr wrote: ↑26 Nov 2023, 01:28And if you had an apple at school, the rule was that the owner of the apple had to leave a bit for her best friend, and that girl had to leave the core for the next best friend. The stalk and pips were left uneaten.
Debbie wrote: ↑26 Nov 2023, 18:46Apparently one year there was a particular vicious sort of disease that effected onions, which, being a British grown veg took them by surprise, and there was hardly an onion to be found round them.
One person put an onion in to the village fair to be auctioned, and the winning bid was over £2.
Apparently they cut the onion into 1/6th and gave the bits to their friends, and everyone was delighted to have their sixth.
Fascinating stories.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
I always found it interesting that in the Adventurous Four, explicitly set in WW2, Enid shied away from using terms like “Nazis”, “Germans”, and “swastika”.
”Let’s get up and shout and wave.” begged Jill. “I’m sure they will love to rescue us.”
”Haven’t you seen the sign on the wings?” asked Tom, in a curiously angry voice. The girls looked. The sign of the crooked cross was painted on each wing-the sign of the enemy, the foe of half the world.
) — very obvious nationalities to pick for the bad guys, only a few years after WW2.
