Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2008/January 2009 | Page 48
life
THE ISLAND AT WAR 1939 - 1945
In the beginning
bacon, butter and
sugar were rationed,
followed by meat,
tea, jam, biscuits,
cheese, eggs, milk
and canned fruit.
In April 1942 the
Ministry of Food’s
leaflet suggested
ways to make carrot
meri ngue tartlets,
carrot marmalade
and carrot candy
and boiled stinging
nettle soup. Snook
fish was available
off ration but it
seems that most
people only tried it
once and the Stork
Wartime Cookery
Book produced
ideas for stretching
or shrinking your
family meals, plus
Civilian ration book, food rationing was introduced on 8th January
money saving meat
1940 (Carisbrooke Castle Museum)
dishes and “How to
confectioners are still allocated sugar
save your dinner if there was an air raid.”
based on peacetime holiday consumption,”
Joan Kirkby remembers queuing at
the official said, “and similarly, drapers’
Hayles Pork Butchers in St. James Square
supplies are estimated on their pre-war
for breakfast sausage that was sold ‘off
orders.”
ration’ and together with an egg, made a
The Mayor of Ryde, Councillor H.W.O.
delicious pie. Obesity was a word that was
Weeks was quick to defend the Island.
seldom heard because, she says, everybody
“The Island certainly is an Isle of Plenty,”
was slimmer and fitter on account of the
he said, “but the people deserve to feed
rationing.
well. We are right in the front line here,
Of course there were grumbles and
visited by sneak raiders daily.” To be fair,
complaints from people including the men
the reporter did add that the abundance
in Parkhurst prison. The Isle of Wight
of food he had seen on his visit was
County Press reported on 8 August,1941,
largely due to the industrious islanders.
that rowdy demonstrations against food
“Everybody grows vegetables or keeps
rationing had become very frequent and
chickens or rabbits and there are pig clubs
some of the prisoners had refused to eat
everywhere” he said.
vegetable soup at dinner-time, saying they
Andrew and Rosemary Asher remember
wanted soup with meat in it. They also
each household was allowed to keep one
complained about the shortage of jam at
pig (if you had two you told the official it
tea-time having conveniently forgotten
belonged to someone else.) “The ‘pig boy’
that they had opted to have jam with
came round once a week with a cart to
their pudding at dinner-time. The paper
collect scraps for the pigs” said Rosemary
printed a typical daily menu at Parkhurst
and Andrew remembers,
and finished by saying, “The prisoners are
“If you went to the sweet shop in the Old
still better off than many people outside
Village run by Dolly Feltham, you got
who had to earn their living.”
extra sweets and it was worth listening to
Nigel Harris says, “Food rationing was
Porky Mew’s ailments to get him to slip
beginning to bite and although we weren’t
you an extra bit of butter.”
desperately hungry, we were always on the
48
lookout for food.” Cycling home from
work, he would stop if he saw a farmer
harvesting his wheat, grab a stout stick
and follow behind the combine harvester
hoping to clout any rabbits he saw hiding
in the stubble.
Clothes rationing had come into effect
on 1 June 1941 and at first, everyone
received sixty-six coupons a year which
was slashed to forty in 1943 and rose
slightly to forty-eight in 1944 but loose
coupons could sometimes be bought on
the black market. People soon learned
to ‘make do’ and not to throw things
away if they could be used again. Crêpe
de chine sheets were turned into dresses
and blankets into coats, cast offs and
hand-me-downs were remodelled, cut
down and sewn up to provide new outfits
and the government ran classes in how
to turn old curtains, furnishing fabrics,
men’s trousers, sheets and pillowcases into
dresses, skirts and blouses.
But hard times inspired women’s
ingenuity. Faced with a shortage of silk
stockings they used a little imagination to
get round the problem, carefully staining
their legs with tea, or even gravy and
then drawing a line with eye liner for the
stocking seam. The Ryde store of
S. Fowler and Co., must have caused
a sensation among the Island’s female
population when they advertised, “We
have just received delivery of a few dozen
pairs of Pure Silk Stockings. These are
slightly sub-standard and necessarily
cannot be guaranteed. To make this small
supply go as far as possible we are asking
our customers to limit their purchases to
two pairs. Prices 5/3 - 5/11d."
Perhaps Christine Macpherson was
one of the lucky customers when she
married Peter Ferguson at St. Mary’s
church in Carisbrooke on 10 February
1945. She says that though clothes were
no problem for the men – Peter wore
his R.A.S.C. uniform and the best man
was in flannels, she had to borrow a
wedding dress and veil from her friends.
Her family had saved coupons for her
going-away outfit and she bought a pale
blue dress advertised in the Isle of Wight
County Press for five pounds for Maureen
Coombes, her chief bridesmaid. She
remembers people gave fruit and sugar
so that their guests could enjoy an iced
wedding cake at the reception in the
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