WWII: During the war you ate everything on a pig except its squeal

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For those on the Home Front during the Second World War, rationing had a major effect on their lives. Eric Swales, of Sunnyhill, was only a child at the time but here he recaptures in vivid detail the everyday struggles of the times.

IMAGINE, if you will, that it is 1940 and Great Britain, a group of islands, is at war with Germany.

We are entirely reliant on about three-quarters of our foodstuffs and raw materials being imported by sea. Hitler’s U-boats (submarines) are sinking merchant ships almost at will and we have lost the Channel Islands, an important home supplier of foodstuffs.

Prior to this had come the issue of National Identity Cards and ration books. Then came rationing proper, not only of luxuries but of basic essentials and this was to last, in varying degrees, for the next 15 years.

Also bear in mind that the average wage was possibly only about £4 10s (£4.50p) per week, with lots of people managing on far less.

The previous year, people had had to register at the shops of their choice – their favourite butcher, grocer and dairy. These details were entered at the back of the ration book. There could be no chopping and changing between shops. This was to enable the authorities to know what supplies should be delivered to the retailers.

Ration books were issued to everyone to be renewed each year. They contained tokens limiting the amount of food that could be obtained and were handed to the shopkeeper, together with money, for the produce required.

There were three types of ration book. The green one was for pregnant and nursing mothers and entitled them to go to the front of queues and receive first choice of any oranges, bananas, milk, eggs etc.

However, in an age when people valued their personal privacy but did not mind gossiping about others, this green book could have its drawback.

It could reveal something scandalous. The woman, for instance, could be single or perhaps a married woman whose husband had been serving abroad for over a year. The other ration books were blue for children between the ages of five and six years and buff-coloured for the rest of the population.

Rationing was not intended to make everyone equal, only to ensure that all received the minimum amount of proteins and vitamins to ensure good health under the harsh conditions. When I look at the supermarkets of today with their multitude of choices compared with those days when choice was non-existent or, at best, very little, Oliver Twist comes to mind. And the answer to his plea for more was about the same.

As I recall, when the first wave of rationing came, the allocation per person per week was:

Butter or lard 4oz (120g); sugar 12oz (360g), shortly afterwards cut to 8oz (240g); raw bacon and ham 4oz (120g); cooked bacon and ham 3.5oz (105g); two eggs, then one if available, but most likely one per fortnight; tea 2oz (60g); cheese varied between 2oz (60g) and 8oz (240g); jam, marmalade, treacle, syrup, honey and lemon curd, all 8oz (240g); and tea 2oz (60g).

There was “none for the pot”. The same tea leaves were used repeatedly just by adding boiling water.

Meat was not rationed but was scarce and limited to 1s10d (9p) worth, eg one pork chop plus maybe four sausages.

As a young boy, the above figures meant “not a lot of anything”, particularly where sweets were concerned. But, as I got older, I realised what 2oz of this and 4oz of that really looked like.

The shortage of meat made people realise that, besides prime cuts, all the innards and extremities of animals were also edible, especially as offal was not rationed.

Pig’s face, pig’s stuffed ear, pig’s trotters in jelly, calves’ feet and heads, sheep’s heads, melt, skirt, chitterlings, tripe, haslet, brawn, tongue, tails and something that sounded like chawl. Liver, however, was a rare treat.

It was said you could eat everything on a pig except its squeal. As our garden was too small to grow vegetables, we kept chickens instead to boost the egg supply. Eggs became a precious commodity with which to barter for other produce.

Our eggs were preserved in waterglass in a smaller version of an Ali Baba jar which was kept at the bottom of the cellar steps, the coldest place in the house.

During winter, it became a test of courage for me to plunge my arm above the elbow into the freezing cold liquid to retrieve some eggs.

I can remember preparing the feed for the chickens, which started with a metal bucket full of potatoes boiling away on the stove.

I would then mash them down, adding meal, grit, old egg shells and stale bread that had been put in the oven to crisp up and then put through the manual “Spong” mincer, before kneading the whole steaming mixture together with my bare hands.

The hens were all named – Jenny, Helen, Mary etc, and became part of the family.

However, as Christmas approached I would tearfully tell my mam that one of the hens was missing.

“Oh, that’s alright. It must have flown away,” she would say. I never did associate the missing bird with the meat on my plate.

As the scarcity of eggs increased, remarks between wives and husbands, such as “How would you like your egg done this month, dear?” abounded.

Then came more rationing. Meat was reduced to 1s 6d (7.5p) worth per person and eventually to 1s (5p), but SPAM (Supply Pressed American Meat) and corned beef became available, but bore no resemblance to today’s products.

Pets weren’t the pampered animals of today. They had to put up with scraps from meals, although near the Normanton Hotel was a shop that sold horse meat laced with a green dye, indicating it was not fit for human consumption.

Some butchers, however, sold suitable horse meat from “under the counter” to certain favoured customers.

Uncontrolled tinned foodstuffs such as fish, beans, macaroni, soup, tapioca and fruit could be bought at ever escalating prices until the Government froze prices and introduced a points system

About 16 points per month were added to ration books to try and stop profiteering. Later, many other items came under this system.

Queuing became a national obsession and necessity. My mam used to send me out early to join a queue before going to school and then came along later to take my place.

Milk went on ration at three pints (1800ml) per person per week, dropping to two pints later, (1200ml) in part due to the slaughtering of dairy herds to free up land for more intensive vegetable farming.

Then National Dried Milk came onto the scene at one tin, equal to four pints per month. It soon became as familiar as American dried egg powder at 1s 9d (9p) per packet, which was equal to 12 eggs. This powder I recall mainly as scrambled eggs on toast.

I recollect horse-drawn milk carts driven by a milkman or woman who would have a long-handled metal measure, probably in gills, to extract the milk from churns into our jug.

Sometimes, if the milk came in glass bottles, they would again be emptied into your own receptacle and the bottle retained by the milkman – the reason being that no more bottles were being made due to glass being diverted to the war effort.

Petrol was rationed so only essential vehicles were supplied. Unessential ones were supposed to be immobilised, although I used to see the cars of some enterprising people travelling about with a large inflatable bag full of gas secured to the roof. How the bag worked I don’t know.

But, as a result, the horse remained the “king of the road” for firms like Offilers Beers on Ambrose Street, the Co-operative Society, railways etc.

During their rounds, the horses would have a nose bag full of feed slipped over their heads, together with a bucket of water for a drink. One of the by-products of a horse was manure, a prized possession for gardeners during the “Dig for Victory” campaign.

Each evening the Offiler’s horses would pass up Stanhope Street from the yard on Pear Tree Road, en route to the stables off Church Street.Men would be poised with a bucket and dustpan to rush out and scoop up any manure deposited nearby, either to be dug directly into the soil or put into hessian sacks, suspended in a water butt, to provide liquid fertiliser.

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