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Here is list of the allowances for
food for one person for one week
Bacon and ham: 4oz (100g)
Meat: To the value of 1s.2d (6p today).
Sausages were not rationed but difficult to get;
Offal (liver, kidneys, tripe’s) was originally unrationed but sometimes
formed part of the meat ration.
Cheese: 2oz(50g) sometimes it went up to 4oz (100g) and even up to 8oz (225g).
Margarine: 4oz (100g)
Butter: 2oz (50g)
Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml).
Household milk (skimmed or dried) was available : 1 packet per four weeks.
Sugar: 8oz (225g).
Jam: 1lb (450g) every two months.
Tea: 2oz (50g).
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week if available but often only one every two weeks.
Dried eggs 1 packet every four weeks.
Sweets: 12oz (350g) every four weeks.
This was only the allowances for food. Clothing, household goods petrol and
many other things were covered by rationing. I mention petrol but petrol was
mostly allocated for farmers and commercial use and was dyed red. The owner of
any private car found with red petrol in the tank could face a jail sentence.
People of our class (working class ) could not afford cars in those days.
The side streets in those days were traffic free and very quiet except for the
milkman’s horse and cart. I really should say milk woman. All the able
bodied men had gone off to war and a lot of jobs were done by woman. I had my
first car in 1961 long after the war had ended. Even then I was the only person
in my street that owned a car.
Coal was not rationed but was in short supply so it rationed itself. There was
a coal yard not far from our house and word soon got around when they had a
delivery. Then I would go round there with my Dad with an old pram and had to
wait in a queue to get a hundredweight(cwt) which did not last long in winter.
The table for weight is:-
16 ounces=1 Lb (pound)
14 pounds=1 stone
2 stones=1 qtr.(quarter)
4 qtrs.=1 cwt (hundredweight)
20 cwt.=1 ton
Therefore 1 hundredweight was equal to 112 pounds
It was also a time of evacuation. All school children in the big cities were
evacuated. I was not then at school being about aged about three or four so I
was not evacuated. My eldest sister Joan had already left school and was
working at The Swallow Raincoat Company on Hockley Hill Birmingham. She later
worked at H. Samuel the jeweller also in Hockley. My two other sisters Eileen
and Margaret were evacuated to Newent in Gloucestershire and my brother Ray was
evacuated to Moira in Leicestershire. Whilst in evacuation Eileen and Margaret
both contracted Diphtheria. Eileen nearly died and Margaret who was said to be
the carrier had it in a milder form. Vaccination for Diphtheria came into being
much later when I was in the junior school. I vaguely remember going to visit
my brother at Moira. One Sunday. It was Summertime. My Mom and Dad and I, and
possibly my younger brother Dennis who was born in 1940. I cant remember. We
went by train from Birmingham and then changed to a local train which stopped
at the small country village of Moira. There was a small railway station and a
level crossing. Being from the back streets of Birmingham I was amazed at the
rural scenery. I had never been to the countryside before. We walked down a
lane from the station and there were a group of five or six houses all set in
there own plots of land. The house where my brother was staying I remember
vividly. It had a great long front garden that was mass of flowers. I
don’t remember much of the house or meeting my brother but what I do
recall is going out into the back garden. The garden was twice as long as the
front one and at the end there were fruit trees bearing apples and pears. I had
never seen apples actually growing on a tree. Most of the back garden was taken
over to growing vegetables. There were lettuces and runner beans and peas,
potatoes, carrots, cabbage and a large greenhouse full of ripening tomatoes. It
was all such a wonder to me. At home we did manage to grow a few sticks of
rhubarb but here there were enormous sticks of it. That is all I can recall of
that visit except that it was a red hot day and we drank home made lemonade.
Talking about rhubarb reminds of my Dad sending me out into the street with a
bucket to collect horse manure left by the Co-op milkman’s horse. This was
to put around the rhubarb to make it grow better. We also used to put a metal
bucket with the bottom knocked out over the rhubarb. This used to force the
rhubarb up.
At the time there was a campaign on called ‘Dig For Victory. Everywhere
you went there were posters proclaiming ‘Dig For Victory’. Public
Parks and any spare bits of land were dug up and planted with vegetables. All
surplus produce from gardens etc. were taken by the government to be
distributed to wherever it was needed. Metal bins (pig bins) were put on every
street corner for any food scraps, potato peelings etc. The bins were emptied
weekly to feed animals but there was always that smell of rotting food in the
air.
There was a shortage of many things during the early years of the war due to
Merchant shipping coming from Canada, America and the Colonies being sunk by
German U-boats (submarines). Another campaign was scrap metal to build tanks.
All iron railings around public buildings, parks and houses were cut down and
taken to the smelter’s to be melted down and then tanks and armaments were
made out of them. There are still places in Birmingham where one can see the
stumps of iron railings.
As kids we just played in the streets playing games and getting up to all sorts
of mischief climbing over walls in to the gardens of the houses in the next
street. Across the road there was a small square of land adjoining which was
called the Mission Hall. It belonged to St. Silas Church which was up the top
of Church Street in fact June attended the infants and juniors church school
there as a girl. Getting back to this square of land. It was covered in black
ash and we spent hours playing football on this patch and you can imagine the
state we used to get into.
On Saturday mornings we used to go to the Children's Matinee at the Villa Cross
Picture House . We watched our favourite cowboy films starring Roy Roger's and
Trigger the Wonder horse. Gene Autry and Tom Mix were also cowboy stars, and
then there was Lassie The Wonder dog. Another cowboy star was Bill Boyd and
though I did not know her at the time June used to tell me she used to kid on
to her friends that he was her father because her maiden name was Boyd. The
last picture showing was always a serial and was carried on from week to week
leaving you in suspense at the the end of the show and you could not wait till
the following week to see what happened. The serial was always Flash Gordon a
space age thriller. These Matinee's ran for about two and a half hours and were
good value at 6d (2 1/2 pence ). To get the money to go to to these shows we
had to search around for empty beer bottles to take back to the off license
where they would give you a refund of 2d on each bottle. They were more than
just a film show, they used to get us singing (We come along on Saturday
morning greeting everybody with a smile). They had talent contests and the
place was always packed to the roof with screaming kids.
Villa Cross Picture House
Burbury Street looking towards where at the very top
of the hill was Lozells Road. A turn left along Lozells Road about a hundred
yards would bring you outside of June's house.
There was a small park three streets away in Burbury Street.
It adjoined the Lucas factory previously mentioned. There were a few swings and
a roundabout there but we did not go very often. It was near to Farm Street
which was quite a rough area.
Handsworth Park and Lake.
The elaborate construction in the foreground is for drinking water. There were
Iron cups on chains which you could fill with lovely cold drinking water. It
was a great pleasure on a hot summer day
June aged 16 in Handsworth Park near the main gate
Handsworth Park was my favourite park and I used to walk there. We never had
the money to go by bus. It was a lovely park with a big boating lake where we
used to catch tiddlers in a net and take them home in a jam jar. There was also
plenty of open spaces to play football and it also had a bandstand. In later
years as a teenager I used to go to Big Band concerts there. Ted Heath and his
music with singers Lita Rosa and Dennis Lotis played there. A lot went on in
the park in the Summer Months. There was The Scout Rally and The Flower Show
which were held there every year. All our courting was done at Handsworth Park
but more about that later. Perry Barr Park was another nice park but we had to
go there by bus. It was a bit far to walk but I have walked it. I remember hot
summer days when we paddled in the brook which ran through the park. In
Summertime, at weekends and holidays our favourite days out were at the Lickey
Hills, Sutton Park, Bewdley and Stourport. To get to the Lickey Hills we first
had to take a five minute walk to Hockley where we would get on A bus to Snow
Hill in the city. From there it was about a ten minute walk across town to
Navigation street where we would board a tram. The journey on the tram was
always very pleasant. The tram for most of the way was down a tree lined
central reservation. This was the Bristol Road. We always headed for the top
deck of the tram and if we were lucky we were able to sit in one of the open
balconies which were at the front and the rear of the tram. The Chestnut lined
central reservation is still there today on most parts of the Bristol Road. The
Tram passed through Selly Oak, Northfield, Longbridge to the terminal at
Rednal. This was The border between Birmingham and Worcestershire.
This is a Birmingham tram at the Rednal Terminus in
1938, the year I was born. This was as far as the tram went because here was
the Birmingham boundary with Worcestershire. From here it was about a ten
minute walk to the start of the Lickey Hills. Notice The balconies, one on each
end. One had to be first in the queue to get a seat here. On later trams they
were enclosed for safety reasons.
An older not very clear photo of the Rednal tram
terminal. The white building on the extreme left is the original terminal
building. It is still there to this day but now functioning as a Chinese
Restaurant
From the terminus it was just a short walk down a hill and round a corner to
the foot of the hills. There were several paths going up which were made of a
series of log steps. At the top there was a small wood cabin where one could
get a cup of tea or an ice cream. It was very spartan in those days. Today the
log steps are still there but now there is a purpose built modern visitor
centre.
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