Wartime Recipes

This will be the first of an ongoing series of articles on an area of British History that has been much covered by many people but few from such a personal angle. Not that my story is so original, many families suffered so much worse than mine.

When the war began my mother would have been about eight and my uncle a babe in arms. Most of the healthy, competent male population between eighteen and forty-five were called up for military service, and so women had to grow and flourish to replace the decimated workforce. To continue to service both industry and the ‘War Effort’

The main sources of information at the time were the press and the ‘wireless’.

Cooking on the radio!

Sources of supply were restricted and from very early on rationing was introduced. A lot of things had to be ‘done without for the duration’

Gardening and food production became a National Pastime. The majority of open land in towns and cities was turned over to the growing of vegetables!

At the start, to those who were living it, there was no forseeable end. The press and the politicians said one thing while the ‘word’ in the shops and pubs said another. When the men began to head off to war, with no knowing if they would ever return, the rest of the country had to settle into an uneasy time of hardship and uncertainty. Because it is such ‘recent history’ there is a lot more known than from previous conflicts, but my main aim here is to highlight the ‘make do’ attitude of an entire nation.

To be continued . . .