How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (23 page)

I was a shy, freckled child of five or six and an only child at the time. My father was away in the army, so it was just my mother and I.

I was sent on an errand to a distant shop for a tin of Spam. It seems like it’s miles away when you’ve only got little five-year-old legs! The old dragon who kept the shop snapped
from behind the counter: ‘We have no Spam. Take this home instead!’ So I ran home with the precious tin of meat. My mother was less impressed. She yelled at me: ‘What’s this
– snoek
^*
? I don’t want blinking snoek. Take it back! What’s she trying to get rid of this for on you?’ I went back into the shop
trembling and waiting to be executed by the dragon, who calmly refunded my money instead.

Brenda Shaw, Hull

*
‘Snoek’ was popularly claimed to be ‘whale meat’ but was in fact a fish mostly from South African waters. It was just
unfamiliar to the British who began to treat it as a national joke.

I’m relating a story, which my husband always told as if it had happened to us, but it actually happened to a friend of his. Here is the story:

We received a food parcel from our cousins in Melbourne, Australia. It contained enough dried fruits to make both a Christmas cake and a Christmas pudding. Plus a small unlabelled packet, which
I assumed to be spice.

I made the puddings and cake. Then we received a letter, which we should have received before the fruit parcel arrived. It told us that the fruit was on its way and that a very special package
was to be included. A small packet containing the ashes of a dear friend whose dying wish had been to have his ashes scattered from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. There was only one thing for it:
the cake and the pudding had to be scattered from the bridge!

Mrs G. Horner, Bristol

During the rationing of food, one was always on the lookout for queues to secure anything that was going. A woman asked a man at the end of a queue what the line was for and he
told her: ‘
Tales of Hoffman.
’

After a moment’s hesitation, she murmured, half to herself: ‘Well I suppose they could always make some soup!’

James Walker, Aberdeen

When I was driving for the WVS, I served a variety of passengers, including Lord Keynes, the economist, and various civil servants, often from the Ministry of Information. Two
particular ladies, from the Ministry of Food, always instructed me ‘to bring nosebags’ and we used to sit outside factories munching sandwiches. Usually my passengers would fix a meal
where we were going, or sometimes we’d go for a ‘five bob’s worth’ at one of the British Restaurants that were run by local authorities and subsidized to provide nutritious
food for people.

Leila Mackinlay, London

For seven years I had known the tranquillity of country life when my peace was shattered by the news that Hitler had entered Poland and we had declared war on Germany. I knew I
had to do something towards the war effort. I could have become a ‘Land Girl’, but my decision to join the NAAFI was encouraged by a friend of mine who was already a member of the
service. With forms filled in and a medical report that said I was A1, I packed my cardboard suitcase and made for my first assignment, which was a barracks where thousands of troops waited for
transport to go overseas.

From a quiet existence I was plunged into noise and people, and for a while I found it hard to accept, but eventually became accustomed to it, and part of it. I was to bake cakes for hungry boys
and, under the supervision of another girl, learned the tricks of the baking trade. I made thousands of rock cakes that lived up to their names when they cooled off, thanks to the lack of fat in
the recipe. It was surprising what one pound of flour, two ounces of margarine and a few currants could make. Sausage rolls were eaten by the dozen, and a concoction called ‘Nelson’ was
a great favourite. This had a pastry base with a bread-pudding filling and a pastry topping. It smelled very good and spicy when it was baked but weighed a ton when lifted from the oven. It
certainly kept the soldiers on the ground after they had tasted it!

However, it was all devoured enthusiastically by the troops, but I was often teased about whose side I was on! One declared I was ‘Hitler’s secret weapon’ trying to kill them
off!

Gwyneth Wright, London

At Christmastime most people took their mixed cake – made from fruit and other ingredients that had been hoarded for months – to the baker’s along the road for
cooking. Nanny lived with Granddad in one house, and her two married daughters lived one house away. So, when the girls arrived home to find the cakes had been mixed, they wanted to know what she
had done about lemon essence, as this was in their pantry. Nanny said she’d got some in her own pantry, but it turned out to be yellow Brilliantine [a hair product] left there by one of the
sons! We’d spent so long collecting all the ingredients that we daren’t waste them, so had the cakes baked anyway.

Mrs B. M. Hipperson

One of the most notable things about the war was the shortage of cigarettes. When you could get them, all sorts of unfamiliar names began to appear on packets. One day, a lady
waiting in a queue with my mother said: ‘I’m dying for a fag. Can you see any?’

Regular customers of the shop knew that ‘special’ items were often put aside under the counter or to one side, so my mother leaned over to have a look before spotting yet another
unfamiliar brand of cigarettes.

‘They’ve got some packets of “Push”’, she answered proudly, not realizing that, in those days before flip-top packs, she was simply reading the opening instructions
on the side of the packet.

Mrs E. Cross, Bexley, Kent

One recalls the wedding of one of the girls on ‘B’ shift to a young soldier who had been working in another part of the building and then been diverted to REME. Our
staff were not supposed to mingle, but love had triumphed and the courtship was largely conducted by him ringing the message room from a phone box at the corner and having a chat to his Mavis when
no alert was on. We managed to provide, between us, the necessary ingredients to give her a proper wedding cake. We were all very fond of the Tchaikovsky concerto, which formed one of the records
in our gramophone club. Unbeknown to the bride and groom, we arranged for the organist to play this piece when they were about to go and sign the register. Who could forget the incredible joy on
Mavis’ face as she halted and stood still until it was finished?

Leila Mackinlay, London