Yet it is hard to be optimistic when you are hungry and hunger was a common condition for many Mancunians. A survey of suburban grocers showed that since the outbreak of war the price of bacon had increased by seventy-two per cent, butter by sixty-six per cent, cheese by fifty per cent, sugar by 450 per cent and jam by 380 per cent – always with the proviso that they could be obtained. Prices also fluctuated from day-to-day, though the trend was relentlessly upwards. Board of Trade figures showed that food prices generally had increased by seventy-eight per cent since the war began.

By the end of the year it was clear that there was a thriving black market operating even in basic foodstuff: in October several bakers in Greenheys were prosecuted for selling bread ‘other than by weight’. The shortage of flour became more and more acute as the year progressed. In November the weight of standard loaves was reduced by one ounce.

By March the shortage of sugar was so acute that there were many houses in the city without any and many grocers had none to sell. It is important to remember that doctors at this time believed that sugar was essential to children’s healthy development. Cafés, too, were getting less than half the sugar they needed. The situation was made worse in April when the government imposed a tax on sugar, together with cocoa, coffee, soft drinks and bicycles, railway travel and, worst of all, all forms of entertainment. In some cases the latter doubled the cost of going to the picture palace.

People blamed producers and grocers for holding back supplies and otherwise exploiting the situation and a series of prominent court cases seemed to confirm this view. On 22 June a number of milk dealers appeared before the city magistrates accused of adulterating their wares. One, James Makin of Upper Medlock Street, Hume, had added, in what was his second offence, sixteen per cent water to his milk. He was fined £10 and ordered to pay the expenses of witnesses.

Milk was again in the news in September, when many of the city’s dealers complained that farmers in the Cheshire Milk Producers’ Association were demanding the exorbitant price of 4½d a quart. The dealers resolved not to pay it. By October this dispute led to a shortage of milk in the city and a significant fall in consumption. By the end of the month reports began to appear claiming that the poor, for whom milk formed a significant part of their diet, were suffering terribly. One Shudehill dealer claimed that both farmers and milk merchants were holding back supplies in order to inflate prices. ‘The government,’ he said, ‘should take action in the interests of the people.’

This, of course, fuelled the debate about rising food prices, especially of cheese, bacon and butter. Cheese was a staple of poor households, with the result that its ever rising price had a disproportionate effect on the worst off. All of these products were affected by supply problems. The Manchester and Salford War Problems Committee was so concerned that on 4 November it convened a meeting of all Lancashire and Cheshire MPs to discuss the issue. Its purpose was simply to put pressure on the government to ‘deal effectively with the increasing cost of food.’

The public were not alone in suffering from rising food prices. By 1916 it was evident that many shopkeepers were forced to close their doors for good as empty shops became a feature of virtually every street. Butchers suffered especially. Those who managed to stay in business suffered another blow on 21 October when the government announced that all shops must close Monday to Friday at 7 pm. Suburban shopkeepers in particular protested that this would put them out of business as they were largely dependent on customers buying after work. The authorities clearly accepted that they had a case, for at the end of the month they relented and allowed them an additional hour during the week and until 9 pm on a Saturday. Yet the public remained convinced that the food trade, at all levels, was exploiting them.

By November many stall holders in Smithfield claimed that potatoes had become a luxury. Selling at the unprecedented price of 2d a pound, many customers could afford no more than a single pound. Fruit and vegetables were selling at between twice and three times pre-war prices. The street hawkers had virtually disappeared from the city. In December the City Council appointed a committee to formulate a plan for growing potatoes in the city.

To promote the scheme the Parks Department announced on 17 March a training course for women gardeners at Heaton Park, designed to help them into employment in agriculture. The Department also staged ‘how to economise’ demonstrations for the housewife at Milton Hall, Deansgate, including one showing how to cook a complete dinner for five people at no more than 4d a head. Miss Petty, the ‘Pudding Lady,’ demonstrated how to make cakes and puddings without eggs, while a dressmaker demonstrated how to make garments from rags and amazed her audience by producing a boy’s suit from an old cloak which she assured everyone ‘the ragman refused to give 2d for’.

The National War Savings Committee wanted people to eat less meat. This request raised the hackles of many Mancunians, who complained that not only was meat beyond the means of the city’s poor, but so were the alternatives. Regardless, the Committee asked everyone to have one meatless day a week – a clear demonstration of the extent to which the government was out of touch with the lives of ordinary people.

Local agencies, however, were fully aware of the extent of problems. Opening the November meeting of the Manchester War Problems Committee, Councillor R.J. Davies spoke of the ‘seething discontent of the working classes of Manchester with regard to food prices’. The problem of the poor was compounded as they were forced to buy both food and coal in the most uneconomical way – in small quantities. Davies stoked the fires of resentment against suppliers by claiming that ‘there was more profit made of food than munitions and other essentials for the continuance of the war’.

When the government finally took decisive action by appointing a Food Controller in November the immediate effect was a sharp rise in the price of white flour as a result of panic buying in middle class parts of the city. Lord Devonport’s first act was to decree that white flour was no longer to be milled. He pegged milk prices, reduced sweet manufacturing and brought the sale and distribution of food under his control. The situation was so serious that the Lord Mayor, Alderman Smedhurst, convened a meeting at the Town Hall to discuss the whole food issue and specifically the milk situation. Many people were finding that grocers sold commodities in short supply, such as sugar, only to customers who spent a substantial amount. There was a great deal of discontent about hotels and restaurants having seemingly limitless amounts of food, too much of which, it was claimed, was wasted. Mrs Annot Robinson of the Women’s War Interests Committee weighed in claiming that those suffering most in Manchester were women living on a small army allowance. ‘Many of these poor people,’ she said, ‘are reduced to living on tea, bread and margarine. Their hardship is becoming intolerable.’ A mother of five children told her she could afford only one bottle of milk a week.

Shopkeepers were also at pains to stress their problems. Mr T. Burrows, chairman of the Manchester Retail Traders’ Association, complained bitterly about the disastrous effects of the new lighting restrictions. ‘Shops and streets,’ he said, ‘are thrown into absolute gloom to no purpose and traders are faced with a great deal of expense and trouble.’

By February over 200 people, mostly retailers, had been summoned for breaching lighting regulations. One shopkeeper, who insisted on burning a light which illuminated a large section of Market Street, had to pay a £2 fine. Many pleaded ignorance of the regulations and complained that they had received no prior warning. The rigour of the authorities in enforcing these regulations was no doubt the result of further Zeppelin raids in the south and east of the country. The raid of 1 February killed fifty-four and injured sixty-seven over six counties.

Partly to assuage the complaints of all those who felt that the blackout was imposing unnecessary hardship and danger on the population, the government introduced a daylight saving law, the Summer Time Act, which came into effect at 2 am on the night of 20/21 May, when all clocks were put forward to 3 am. Yet this did nothing to improve the situation during the hours of darkness, especially when the Gas Committee prohibited lighting in side streets. It is clear that there was a real fear of air raids among both the Manchester public and those in authority. The chief response to the blackout was that by 1916 many householders had painted their steps, gateposts and kerbs near their homes white. The Corporation had long since painted a white band around lampposts.

The dangers of the blackout were not only physical. On 25 October Councillor Kendall complained that it was having a baleful effect on the city’s morals: he said the city’s streets were ‘no longer fit for respectable people to pass along’ though several other councillors strongly contested this. All, however, agreed that ‘the danger from the darkened streets was far greater than anything to be feared from the Zeppelins’.

The dark streets were only one of the many things changing the lives of children. In fact, there is a powerful argument for saying that Manchester more than any other city was transformed by the war. The immediate effect on schools, for instance, was that they went half-time and children attended either in the morning or the afternoon and were generally free to roam the streets for the rest of the day.

The role of teachers also changed: they served school meals, organized the children to bring in goods for sales of work to raise money for the troops, operated a school saving bank and later administered food rationing. They organized the children to make comforts – scarves, gloves, socks, and balaclavas – for the troops and taught them how to grow vegetables to overcome food shortage. Wool was delivered to schools for the children to knit body belts, socks and mittens for the troops.