We Weren't Hungry

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to The Liverpool Diocesan Care and Repair Association and James Taylor

We had to cope. We got a quarter of butter, two ounces of tea, this for one person, four ounces of meat, two ounces of bacon, you’d never see an egg. You’d go to your relations and they lent you a ration book. If they had gangs of kids they’d say “Go and use mine.” Everyone helped one another. But we weren’t hungry. As for potatoes, you’d have to go and queue up and I think they’d had them in a hundred years, little weenie ollies we got! But if you were at the end of the queue you didn’t get any! We’re none the worse for it. Even bread, you queued up for bread, if you didn’t get there while they were giving the bread out …….
I used to go at 8 o’clock in the morning to a place on Wavertree Road, a German shop, and he used to always sell sausages. I think we got two ounces of cheese, on the rations. I don’t think it was enough but you had to make it do. You’d never see a banana, you’d never see an orange or an apple, but we’re none the worse for it.
With my husband being away during VE Day, I only had the kids and never bothered to celebrate. We had a little party in street for the children, but we didn’t have the food to give them. We were all mucking in then, you know, bits of this and bits of that from people’s houses to make the party up.
The rationing lasted for about twelve months, I should think. But when the rations finished you couldn’t get the stuff. It wasn’t’ in the shops to give you. If you had a good shopkeeper, you got a back hander, he’d say “Oh, I’ve got such a thing in.” I used to go to a certain butchers and he used to say to me “Got a bit of liver here.” And he’d wrap it up for you. That wasn’t on the rations, liver or heart, but we survived didn’t we, we never went hungry that’s one thing. There was things that you would have liked but it was just enough to keep you going, you went to neighbours to get their ration books, and when your husband come home on leave, you’d take his ration book to the butchers and he’d give you some extra.

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