The View From the Corner Shop

Glanced through MO papers as I was dressing and am ‘floored’ straight away. See [I] shall have to put on my thinking cap for questions this week, and it is an ill-fitting garment. My mind flits easily from point to point like a bird on a branch but when a settled opinion is asked for and reasons to be given, particularly about a nebulous idea like ‘Progress’ I am flummoxed.¹⁸ As the man said, ‘I know enough to know I know nowt’.

Bert went down to the Food Office in a disturbed frame of mind to answer the charge of discrepancies in his butter returns, but he was consoled to find a queue all bent on the same errand. What with folk fetching their returns in bits and bats instead of altogether and evacuees and soldiers (two or three different ration rates for them) I think we do marvellously well. At any rate the Food Office is reasonable and approachable. We had a lady in for emergency rations whom I thought very dour until she chanced to remark it was strange to see glass in shop windows – when it dawned on me she was an evacuee. She was and living with Mrs M. who told me later that the woman and two tiny children had been bombed out of Hull; her husband was on a minesweeper and didn’t know, and they had been living in half a shelter for six months. When the billeting officer came round Mrs M. offered to take two children but when they arrived their mother was with them ‘and what could I do, I had to take them in. The woman looked paid out and I am going to give her a rest and look after the kiddies for her’. They were two nights in hospital at Bradford before coming here, being examined, and then some of the people who had promised to have them went back on their word – one woman saying loudly and cruelly ‘I am not having any children so you can just take them away’ – so that many of them had to be taken back to Hull again. Margaret says she wishes no one ill but it really would do this district good to have a small dose of what Hull has had. I think it is lack of imagination rather than lack of heart that makes people callous, and many a one has the same attitude to evacuees as to the unemployed – ‘Yes it is a pity, but what can I do? It’s not my business. It’s the Government’s’ – with a little condescension in their attitude. Only similar experience will jolt some of them awake. After all Hull isn’t Russia – they cannot have disaster much nearer their own doorstep and still be able to turn their back on it. But it makes one wonder – when one reads how the Russian women are fighting side by side with the men and everyone joining whole heartedly into what there is to do.

Listened to Lord Woolton last night and thought him reasonable enough, except for his saying that people will have to get more meals out. This may be alright for workers and people at the centre of things but it is useless for our district where people would have to pay 2d bus fare to reach them. And I don’t think the Yorkshire housewife will ever get into the way of dining out. Besides you get three or four out of a family taking meals like that and it’s going to cost something in a week even at 9d a head only. It is cheaper to give them bread and fish paste or such like. A working class woman cannot afford 9d per head per meal or anything like it. Though a lot of them could get better meals if they stayed at home and spent some time preparing them instead of going out for a low wage which they have to pay out in other ways to keep things going. These older married women would do better by their country to stay at home and look after their families better. But some of them would much rather go out. Mrs C. has worked all her life as a ‘rag picker’ earning good money, her two children had started working and her husband had a steady job on the roads. Then she had another child and the family peace was broken. She could no longer go to work and ‘keep her end up’. She tells me her husband and daughter frequently throw it up at her that she is not ‘bringing anything in’ and therefore has no say in household affairs. ‘I held my head as high as anyone and dressed as well, before I had him. Now I’m just a mug for them.’

In the broadcast under discussion, the Minister of Food did indeed recommend that citizens, especially those unaccompanied by children, could cope better with household rationing if they sometimes ate out at British Restaurants (initially referred to as Communal Feeding Centres), which were then being set up to provide hot, nourishing meals at reasonable prices, usually a shilling or less for a full-course midday meal. No ration coupons were required for these meals, and the service was cafeteria-style, then a novelty. As Lord Woolton put it, ‘people can go there to get supplementary food in just the same way as other people can go to clubs, [private] restaurants and hotels’. (BBC Written Archives Centre, p. 4 of the script.) In April that year a British Restaurant, staffed mainly by members of the Women’s Voluntary Services, had been opened in Dewsbury at the Wellington Road Methodist Sunday School, not far from the LMS train station. (Dewsbury District News, 19 April 1941, p. 5 and 22 March 1941, p. 5.) Kathleen’s concern was that since Dewsbury Moor was on the outskirts of the town, its residents would have to pay to take a bus to get to and eat at the new British Restaurant. These restaurants usually worked best when they were located in places where there were lots of daytime workers nearby, which was certainly the case in town centres.

The reference to Mrs C., a rag picker, is a reminder that the recycling of woollen garments was a prominent industry in Dewsbury, and that sorting these ‘rags’ for future ‘shoddy’ goods demanded considerable skill. As the Dewsbury Official Handbook for 1950 observed (p. 71), ‘so far, no machine has been invented which can perform the job of a skilled sorter. Indeed, an expert in this trade can command much higher wages than those provided by the Trade Board Acts. Merchants always try to retain in their employ such sorters, usually women, whose keen sight and nimble fingers can at once differentiate between various types of cloth rags. Some of these women are able to classify a rag at first glance – quite a feat when one remembers the almost infinite variety of grades, even in the average wardrobe.’

The work had a significant impact on the profits achieved. ‘This process of sorting determines just how much the merchant is to make on any particular batch of rags, for whereas some cloths are relatively valuable, others, which contain a large proportion of cotton or artificial fibres, may be worth very little. When the rags have been sorted, they are baled and labelled by various trade names. Some of these grades may not be wanted for years, but they are always potentially valuable to the merchant.’ During the war Dewsbury was a receiving depot for most of the Forces’ discarded clothing. ‘A special Government department was set up to deal with the vast quantity of uniforms which had become unwearable. Thousands of tons were stored in the town, and from time to time amounts were released to rag merchants and after treatment [for purification] much of the material was re-made into uniform cloth.’ (Ibid., pp. 71–72.)

We then discussed (going back to Lord Woolton) fairness of rationing and agreed that it was hard that a little more couldn’t be given to the old folk who live by themselves and less to young children. For instance, a woman with a baby in arms and a toddler does not need ½ lb bacon and ¼ lb of tea for them every week but these would be grand for the old folk who cannot get out to seek delicacies for themselves. But we agreed a lot of the grumbling about being short was not for essentials but for luxuries which in the years before the war had come to mean essentials to many. When we were at Wakefield shop it was not unusual to sell customers 5 to 7 lbs cheap sweet biscuits per week (in ¼d and ½d). The children who come for them at this rate were always the poorest clad, and they always spent most on sweets too. Frequently women would say ‘Our so-and-so will not eat any breakfast. All he wants is cream biscuits.’ As for the miner who said he had to take dry bread five days a week – well, he should roust his wife round for that. Margaret said you know what miners are. He’d probably drunk all his wage.

Bert to Food Office and straightened out his butter tangle. He says the Food Office said ‘That’s another cleared up’ in relieved tones. I suppose they have their troubles too. Maybe he had been getting into trouble because there was too much butter melting away in Dewsbury. At any rate Bert said there was a rare queue of worried looking shopkeepers. The milk business is going to be awkward. We have about 18 gallons allocated according to registrations but our present amount dealt with is only 36 pints per week. I fear a good many of those registered are the sort who don’t have a regular milk man and are only counting on getting an occasional tin. The Medical Officer should have made clear if tinned milk was to be rationed. We look like having gallons of milk on our hands when we begin.

Discussing refugees in the shop today Mrs L. said all her neighbours were in fear and trembling that they would be forced to take some. Several people, however, have already taken some. Old Mrs H. took in a mother and two young children and on hearing there were two older boys at Batley she said they could come as well so as all to be together. Mrs L. says her brother and sister at York each have children and they manage very well but it is the parents and other relations visiting at weekends and expecting ‘Yorkshire pudding and such-like’ that upset things and if protest is made they are told they are well paid for it. Another friend of Mrs L.’s had four boys but she soon got rid of them for dirty habits but not before they ruined her two beds [by bed-wetting]. Mrs H. said her mother had had a packet [trouble] with evacuees and wouldn’t have another if she went to prison for refusing.¹⁹ The first one she had, a girl, had only the clothes she stood up in; they rigged her out and kept her until her parents sent for her back and sent her home with two suitcases full of clothes, but there was neither any acknowledgement or return of suitcases. The next attempt was with a boy of eleven whose habits were filthy. They struggled on however until he went home for Christmas and then told him not to come back. On Christmas Eve, however, he returned, late at night and said his parents had sent him. But they refused to let him in and dispatched him to the Billeting Officer who fixed him with more suitable accommodation, that is, with people more his own stamp.

Switched off the wireless after the 9 [o’clock] news when that tedious Mr Brown began to talk Polish horrors. I think we are having too much war and war talk shoved down our throats. We should be given a more bracing atmosphere to help us through dark winter days. Surely there are some good speakers somewhere in Britain who won’t treat us like school children. Anyway, haven’t we horror enough without piling on the agony?

The question about shelter plans prompted me to look at ours. I had to scramble over new dug ground and then knee deep into high grass and weeds, and found its doorway tastefully decorated with a tall seeding plant, and its interior filled with bricks, about three cartloads. Whatever possessed Mrs Hobbs to have the thing there for in the first place, and why did she permit the Council to put an extension to it if it was never meant to be used? I believe she had some high notion about it being a refuge for strangers passing but they would break their necks in any attempt to reach it in the dark, even if they knew it was there, which they could not possibly [know] – it is not seen from the road. Mr and Mrs Hobbs, our landlady and lord, have ceased to be wardens, and handed all their traps in. It will be strange when next we have a siren not to have Mrs Hobbs tearing round the estate blowing her whistle and again at ‘all clear’ ringing the handbell vigorously; in between times she sits in her shelter all the time. N. says their wardens used to ring and rattle and blow all at one and the same time, until people complained they didn’t know whether they had to go to shelter or bed or put on their masks. Our raids at Dewsbury Moor are comic opera ones. If something did happen I dread to think how we should fare. Mrs J. says all the surface shelters are disgraceful, the children use them as lavatories, and Mrs G. says the ones near her house are the same and have only been completed a month. She says she wouldn’t go in them on any account. I said I should ask for them to be locked.

N. and Bella Hill were going blackberrying today so Mr Hobbs decided to take a day off from work and go. He said there were plenty of men standing about doing nothing without his help. For this ‘government’ job he gets £3 per week.

Had afternoon off to see [George Bernard Shaw’s] Major Barbara [at the Pioneer Cinema] which is only the second time to pictures this year.

Bella Hill says there are fifty evacuees coming on the Moor on Friday. She says it is about time some of those big houses up Birkdale and Oxford Roads has someone; they had more room and had as much right to be put about as poor folk. What about H. S. and his brother, both ex-mayors and both houses with only two occupants? I said Yes, there was a letter [from ‘Share and Share Alike’] in the Reporter last week from Bennett Lane complaining that besides having the [anti-aircraft] ‘gun’ they had soldiers and evacuees ever since the war began and it was time things were faired up, and this letter mentioned Birkdale and Oxford Roads. Margaret said it was the fault of the Government for appointing local Billeting Officers. They knew all the local Bigwigs and were thinking of their jobs after the war. Bella Hill said, ‘They’ll not have any, lass, whoever writes to t’papers. Money gets away with it every time.’

To Mirfield for tea. Mr D. said he’d been talking to a man at Ossett who never got up if in bed when there was an alert. But said Mr D. ‘If I was your neighbour and my house got on fire you couldn’t get dressed and out to help me in two minutes. And neither could I help if I was in bed and had to dress. I always dress and put on my boots on “alert”.’ This reply impressed the man who said he had never considered having to help anyone else and he would in future get up. Such is the power of suggestion coupled with Mr D.’s voice and presence. I said it was funny how Germany had got all those men trained and armaments before the war and everyone in this country who knew kept quiet about it. Mr D. said no one kept quiet. Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Lord Lloyd all warned us Germany was preparing but [Clement] Attlee [leader of the Labour Party] and his crush wouldn’t have rearmament at any price. They would have all those houses built and social services and of course the public supported those who had the most to offer, and that was how we got into this mess. He said Germany had often boasted she could turn any of her mills on to armament work in 24 hours.

Listened to Brains Trust recording at dinnertime [1.15] which recalled our experiment on Sunday at M. S.’s ‘after Joad’.²⁰ The lifting was a success in the first instance, [with] K. M. who is very slight, but with M. S. about 14 stone a complete failure. On hearing Joad’s full story today I said no wonder we failed – we’d had no beer!

We had an ‘alert’ [for] about half an hour last night. I remained in bed and should have slept but for Bert continuously opening the shop door. Mrs Hobbs our landlady does not make the night resound with her whistle now as she has resigned voluntary ARP [Air Raid Precautions], and Mr Hobbs too, having taken tut [disapproval] because their best girl furrier had had to change her job to something more essential than renovating fur coats. Formerly Mrs Hobbs used to whistle round the neighbourhood running at breakneck speed and then burrow in her shelter until the ‘all clear’.

Mrs Hobbs informs me rather spitefully it will soon be my turn [to be called up for national service] and I shall not be exempt because I am not on food ‘production’ and in any case not a ‘key’ worker. I nearly said ‘Is your assistant a “key” worker?’ but refrained. Bella Hill says the Labour Exchange told the girl it did not matter how many letters Mrs Hobbs wrote or how many influential people Mrs Hobbs ‘enlisted’ to speak for her, she would have to go on war work and that was the end of it. We seem to have several new faces among the children seeking sweets. They ask for ‘goodies’ instead of ‘spice’ [sweets] so conclude they are ‘Hull-ites’, evacuees. The ‘spice’ department will be sold-out earlier than ever.

To Mirfield to see Ma. Discussed evacuees. Mrs D. said her sister in Lincolnshire had a little girl whom she wanted to leave as she felt too old (nearly seventy) to bother, and besides the mother (unmarried) seemed to think she’d found a permanent home for the child. Mrs D. says her sister complains to the Vicar frequently but a fresh home has not been found for the poor child yet. Mrs D. said Mrs W. (a lady magistrate) had been round Mirfield to see about billeting. At one house she was confronted by ‘Are you having some bairns yoursen?’ Mrs W. said ‘no’. ‘I’ll have some when you do. As many as you do. And my house isn’t so big as yours.’ There is surprisingly little resentment, really, that the ‘better class’ folk are getting off having ‘lodgers’. Most folk seem to regard it as something to be avoided if possible, if not they must be resigned. The only willing ones I have talked to are women who have got several children, either small or grown up.

Mrs W. was telling me her troubles with the Public Assistance Officer [in charge of poor relief]. Her husband is in the institution as a result of the last war, incurable. She said she had so much to put up with from the Public Assistance Officer that as soon as the lads started working she gave up having relief at all and they have all three lived on 38s per week for some time. Now John has got a better job and immediately she had a letter from the Public Assistance Officer to ask how much she proposed paying towards her husband’s keep. She said she was not grumbling but she did think she ought to have a chance to get on her feet. The boys had no new clothes for two years apart from working boots and her household things were getting done [i.e., worn out]. I said she ought to live at Wakefield which is a scrounger’s paradise if ever there was one. They are not stingy with Public Assistance there. She said well, she hoped she had finished with Public Assistance. They would manage somehow now the lads were getting older.

We had had no tea for three days. This must be the crisis that Brooke Bond’s man threatened so long.

Ulkew, our best sweet traveller, came today. (He is also my cousin and favours us very much so that I think sometimes someone will grumble at ‘short allowance’.) I asked him what about serving the canteens. He said they would have to do it whether they wanted or not and it was a silly order because it simply meant the bosses and top-dogs would have their pickings of all the sweets and chocolate to the canteens and the workers would have the leavings if any. He said it would be much better to let it out to the shopkeepers who know their own customers and could be trusted to share it as they knew best. I said, ‘Hear, hear,’ but considering everything we don’t do so badly here though we are very careful with our rations, keeping them first for the children and second for customers.

Bert had had occasion to warn Mrs C. about leaving some of her weekly bill on. She is the only one of our dozen tick customers who ever does. The others who spend anything from 12s to £2 always ‘pay on the nail’ and rarely vary from week to week more than 2s. They are much more straight than at Wakefield, especially about paying odd coppers owing, and seldom quibble about their bills. Our landlady, Mrs Hobbs, who had the shop before, used to add sixpence per customer for ‘book keeping trouble’ but we stopped this unfair practice, though we could if we were disposed add shillings, as only three of our customers keep an account to check up by.

Reading Claudius but find it a strain rather, what with keeping track of all the characters and reading [H. G.] Wells’ History to explain what the book doesn’t. Ma looks with disfavour on ‘Penguins and Pelicans’, thinking no good can be got from any book costing only six pence. But she succumbed to Pygmalion [by George Bernard Shaw, 1912], saying ‘I don’t know what sort of book you’ve bought me – but it’s true what it says, all the same.’

As N.’s employer will now have to release her, E. has written for her to live with her and go on munitions, so E. won’t have room for evacuees. But N. will not do that, I think. She will join the Forces as she has wished to for some time.

The black news from Russia [concerning the German assault on Moscow] has stirred people to talk about the war when they come in the shop. Three people asked if we had heard the news at 8 o’clock. Several said things looked bad for Russia. Men spoke in sort of admiration of the Germans. ‘He must have some stuff. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how much he loses, he just goes on.’ ‘They’re clever, you know, whatever you say about them. They have been getting ready for years.’ ‘They can show us points.’ Mrs M., evacuated from Hull, came in with her little boy of three. I said when was he going to school? She said would the war be over when he was old enough. I said I didn’t know, but not this winter. She said, no, nor next, and seemed gloomy. Her husband is on a minesweeper. A traveller said what did we think now of the war. Bert said they were trying to get dug in before winter. Traveller said yes, and then it would be a job dislodging them. The difficulty was getting supplies to them. He knew Persia personally from last war, and what transport would be like. What a good thing Hitler had gone there first instead of here. He must have unlimited men and stuff.

Mr C. in today said that people were making a tremendous fuss about Russia but that they would hold out. The Germans were still 200 miles from Moscow. The Russians would trap them. But Mr C. would not have it that France would collapse right up to the last day, nor that we should ever be bombed, although he’s an old soldier. Tonight M. G. came and then N. G. We had a real ‘war’ talk. M. G. led up by saying how unfairly the voluntary Fire Service are treated. Her brother, who has served voluntary since spring 1938 and has 100% record for attendance, was given no option when he was of age but put on regular service, and was divested of his stripes (like cashiering, M. G. says), as if he’d done something wrong, and now he has to kick his heels all day and polish the fire engine, when he is a trained wireless expert and keen to go on radio location. M. G. says contrast this with her second brother’s treatment. He, a Grammar school University-trained teacher, never did anything for the war until he was called up. He was greeted with open arms. The Colonel gave him the choicest of England’s Army work to choose from and talked to him like a father. M. G. says it is unfair that the willing ones who have helped from the beginning should be penalised and the hangers-back made much of.

Then we discussed Mrs Hobbs’s business, which seems to haunt us just now. Bert, as usual on the wrong tack, said who was Mrs Hobbs anyhow that her assistants shouldn’t go, and what importance was a furrier’s business? N. said, when she could be heard, that the point was that a girl at the Labour Exchange should have the sole decision about a business that had taken years to build, and why wasn’t there a tribunal to hear and discuss these things? I said that the Daily Mail [which now favoured the conscription of young single women] said women were pampered about these things and given unlimited time to make their minds up. I’d always understood there was a tribunal. M. G. said no, it wasn’t like that. She knew a girl who was called up, and said she would like to join ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service] or WAAFs. The girl clerk looked her up and down scornfully and told her, ‘You’d better go on munitions, my girl,’ whereupon the girl marched out saying ‘B—— you, I’ll do nowt’. ‘You will be sent for,’ said the clerk. ‘Yes, send,’ said the girl, ‘and won’t I tell them something.’ This was months ago and she has never heard a word. Bert, still on the subject, said why shouldn’t Mrs Hobbs do her own furrying if it came to that? N. said, fair was fair, and there should be more than one person to hear her side. Even Bert had to admit that was right. M. G. said of course there was bound to be unfairness in dealing with millions and millions. There was bound to be grievances and squabbles. But I wondered if the Russians wasted their time trying to get out of service and sacrifice. We talked of all the married women we knew, too old for service but young enough to have a darn good time and enjoy life. Margaret said there would probably be older folk drawn in yet, the way things were shaping. I said I hoped I didn’t have to go on munitions. Margaret said she thought not, I was a food assistant, but cheer up, it’s no use trying to stop things; we shall have to accept things as they come.

Then it was evacuees. Margaret said why were they all being brought to poor homes? N. said because they were suitable for the type of evacuee. (She’s helped to billet.) The town was plotted into districts and it was Dewsbury Moor’s turn. I was not convinced and said, well what about a better type, like us, for instance? Surely we should be good enough for Oxford Road district [a prosperous part of town]. To my surprise both N. and M. G. jumped on me and said there was no better type; it was always the same kind who had to be found homes – the other sort found their own billets. We should if we were bombed out.²¹ ‘That depends—’ I began, but was shouted down before I could say what if we lost all our money, what if our friends were in similar plight, or already full up? So I fell to considering where we could go about here to lodge and apart from Ma going to Mirfield couldn’t think of anywhere for us.

Lord Beaverbrook’s talk last night was clearly to ginger us up to work harder [the newspaper magnate had headed a recent high-level mission to Moscow]. The Russian business is a puzzle. After being warned of the nasty Bolshies so long we’re now asked to embrace them as brothers and Allies. Before they were never mentioned on the wireless or press other than derisively; now their praises are sung to the skies. Well, all the praises are deserved and something more substantial too. I never did believe all they said about Russia anyway; it may have been true – but only half the truth I think. But we needn’t skit any more at the Germans for turning somersaults.²² And I wonder what’s going to be the ‘Big Pots’’ attitude to Russia after the war.

Brooke Bond’s man says what the dickens are the Government thinking of? There need be no shortage of tea at all if they would only bring it into the country, instead of shiploads of other useless goods. ‘Take these,’ seizing a packet of Corn Flakes and brandishing it. ‘A ton of these things fills a ship. Now how much tea couldn’t you bring instead of those?’ ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but we are now at the mercy of the American Business Man and if he wants us to have Corn Flakes instead, Corn Flakes we must have.’

To Wakefield. Saw Mrs V. She says she has had a new fireplace in her (Corporation) house and has papered and decorated it all through herself. But when they wanted to billet a woman and young baby on her she told them she couldn’t have anyone – her health wouldn’t stand it. This is pretty good, I think, as she is occupying a three-bedroomed house and receiving Public Assistance. I told her she wouldn’t get away with it like that at Dewsbury, but she merely smiled and said to avoid further such risk she had put her name down for the ARP as a cook, but was hoping she’d hear nothing further!

Had weekly row with Mr B., who says how is it other folk can get stuff and he can’t? How is it other shops have plenty of stuff? ‘We have plenty too,’ I retorted, waving at the shelves. ‘Only we can’t sell you it. Look at all that jam, for instance. Six months’ supply at the rate we can sell it and it’s all paid for. When are we going to get our money back for that?’ He gaped round and said nothing. ‘Now you come seeking milk,’ I said, ‘and we’ve got dozens of bottles and can’t sell you one. If you want milk go where you are registered and if you want a tin of milk you must wait till your milkman’s cows run dry; then you’ll have plenty, but not sweetened.’ He said who ever heard of a milkman delivering tinned milk? I said we shall hear of queerer things before this war’s over. He went out mollified but will have forgotten and come ranting in next week, saying he’s going to find another shop, he can’t get nowt here.

As Bert has no petrol and we cannot go out, spent the morning repacking my emergency bag [for possible evacuation at short notice]. This time included a list of Savings Certificates and a few Penguins. This lives in the cellar kitchen. Bert says the war will be over by spring – no country can stand the pace. I think now it will be two years at the earliest, and then there will be no definite conclusion, just a petering out from exhaustion.

Later. To Mirfield to bring Ma home. Mr D. said why weren’t we doing more, why weren’t we ready, why didn’t we land in Norway? Now was our chance. What had the Government been doing these two years? Mr Churchill made a fine First Lord [of the Admiralty] but he didn’t think he was doing the thing now. Bert said he didn’t think the Government were pulling – something was holding them back. Mr D. said they were trying to save British blood but it would have to be spent some time – we should have to meet them at the last. When announcements of War Efforts Week [to raise money for the Forces] started, Mrs D. shut it off hastily, saying she’d no patience, they were always begging for something and what did they do with it – just chuck it away and waste it. Mr D. said what about these poor devils who were putting their money in War Savings (I’m one but I didn’t let on) – they wouldn’t get a penny of it back because there would be none to pay with; they’d be working for a pound a week if that. He didn’t like to think about what it would like after the war – it was bad enough last time – but this . . . ! God help the youngsters who were growing up, they’d have to face the music.

When I asked a customer 1s ½d for a half stone of flour she wanted to know why flour was up as she’d paid ½d less for a loaf today. I said I didn’t know but it was so. But I could see she didn’t believe me and her face if not her tongue was accusing as she went out. We have apples today at 9d and cannot convince the kiddies their pennies or even halfpennies will [not] buy one. They look so bewildered as if to say, there are the apples, here is the money, why are we denied them? Carrots are a poor substitute to offer them. I should hate to be offered a carrot when my mind was set on apples. Long ago when I was a food faddist I ate grated carrots and everyone thought me peculiar. Now they are fashionable I seem to have lost my taste for them.

The siren sounded as we were finishing supper. Bert, who had a cold, took himself off to bed, leaving the womenfolk to keep guard. He said we could call him if the guns went. Margaret has just announced that she thinks it was not our siren, to Ma’s indignation – to think she might have gone to bed hours ago.

Fifteen minutes later. Ma just retired still wearing her raid regalia – tweed hat and bright blue dressing gown – when guns caused her to hurry down again. Margaret and I patrolled outside. Nothing doing.

12 o’clock before the All Clear went. Only one person mentioned the alarm in the shop today. Bert said he was awake ready to get up but strange to relate he never heard either guns or plane. Mrs Hobbs has written to Mr [Ernest] Bevin [Minister of Labour and National Service] personally about her assistant who has not yet left, although she has had six green cards to go to different jobs.

The wireless news seems gloomy tonight with Lord Beaverbrook saying we must prepare for invasion – our turn will surely come; and then in the Postscript that Mr [Douglas] Jay telling us we were not in earnest about the war, that we should have to have shorter rations and less clothes and (if we had them) do with less servants, that we had years of grim struggle ahead of us even if things went well. I do wish we could be told right out things are bad and will be, instead of being on this perpetual see-saw. The Government tells us nothing, the wireless tells us even less, and the newspapers are either written in seventh Heaven or deepest pit of gloom.

Oranges today. Spent my time turning a deaf ear to those women who had children ‘just over age – it doesn’t seem fair,’²³ those who had invalids who longed for oranges, and old Mrs H. who said tartly ‘It didn’t matter about us old ’uns. We mud (may) clam to death. We shall only be fit for t’tannery soon.’ ‘And tough bit of leather you’ll make,’ I thought, but I only said, ‘Oh, you’ll see two or three more wars yet, in your time. This isn’t your last by any means.’ And she was so surprised she forgot herself and smiled.

A display of fruit and vegetables in a greengrocer’s shop includes a sign stating that the oranges on sale are intended only for children.
Photograph © IWM D7966

Bert got his food permits for next month, and is puzzled because cheese allowance has dropped to 1 oz and butter risen to 4 oz. Have no information about this. Hope it is true. The butter shortage hurts me more than anything in this war. Bert will not allow us an ounce over rations. Margaret grumbles sometimes because he expects homemade cake every day and she says she cannot manage it on the rations. Good thing we are all small eaters and only Bert takes sugar. We never take our full bacon rations (as there is never enough left when everyone is supplied), seldom take eggs (our milk girl brings us fresh ones) and never take cheese. Therefore it is annoying when the knowing ones say, ‘You are alright. Nothing to do but help yourself.’

Reading Beatrice Webb’s My Apprenticeship [1926] and feeling thankful I live now, even in the middle of my second war, and not fifty years before. I bought Ma The Good Soldier Schweik [by Jaroslav Hasek, 1923] and she grumbles that it is daft on every page, but I tell her she must persevere and not have 6d wasted.

Thought the Variety Show last night poor and [comedian] Oliver Wakefield disgusting. His concluding remarks were the limit. If Oliver Wakefield and his circle like this rubbish they should indulge in private and not force it on folk who are not in a position to retaliate with a good telling off [see below, 27 October 1941]. The news came on at once and anyone who tuned in for 9 o’clock would catch that exquisite sample of British Humour. (I wonder if our foreign listeners think it worthwhile risking their lives when that’s what they hear.) If the BBC cannot get good comedians every week let them say so right out and put on gramophone records. We shall appreciate real humour all the more when we do hear it. [Actress] Jeanne de Casalis was broadcasting two consecutive nights last week, one at short notice, but her humour was humour, and entirely fresh each time. Besides I dislike the subtle insult the BBC hands us that this much is good enough for us.

Later. Bert having a windfall of petrol from his doctor in return for all the biscuits and cigs he keeps taking him, we set out on a round of visits. First to M. S.’s where I was soon in hot water because I said H. had done right to have a baby. M. S.’s mother was indignant and said wartime was no time to have one, and anyway what was there to bring any child into the world for – look what suffering there would be after this upheaval. I said people were a jolly sight better off after the last war in spite of everything and in any case the children would be looked after if no one else [was]. ‘Who is going to pay all these taxes and war debts?’ she went on. ‘There won’t be any debts,’ I said. ‘There’ll have to be a different straightening up this time. And as for taxes – you get it back one way or another. Do you mean to tell me young mothers today are not better off in every way, in spite of bombs and rationing, than you were when your children were little?’ She was bound to confess that was true. ‘And do you honestly wish you had never been born yourself?’ She said well, there had been plenty of times when life wasn’t worth living – but then H.’s entrance changed the subject. I have no patience with these arguments about not having children. They are all selfish ones however high falutin they are made to sound.

It was a treat to go and see the new parents. They were delighted with their offspring and said it was a planned and wanted baby. (Planning now being fashionable, even for families.) H. is 35 and his wife a year younger, and have been married seven years. He said he wasn’t too keen at first but M. said she wanted a family and was getting older. So little Hazel makes her debut to a somewhat disapproving world but her parents love her and that’s all that matters.

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Grumbles and Groans

September–October 1941