The effect of this on the poor who hoped to have fowl as a special treat at this time of the year was to make that wish impossible. Tomatoes were fetching a record wholesale price of 1/3 a pound. There was neither holly nor mistletoe available and few Christmas trees. The shortage of meat was such that butchers were unable to mount displays in their windows and were selling only to loyal customers. They were unanimous in saying that it is impossible for them to buy at prices which allowed them to sell in accordance with the Price Controller’s limits. As one market stallholder said, ‘In all my thirty years’ experience, I’ve never seen the place look so bare’.

The length of queues grew to a bewildering extent, especially in poorer parts of the city. Three days before Christmas a grocer’s on the corner of St Mary’s Gate and Deansgate attracted a queue that stretched down Deansgate beyond Exchange Street – at least a thousand people – even before it opened. The shop was one of the few in the city with margarine. The police arrived, though in truth there was little need for them: the mood was one of docile resignation.

Resignation to hardship was also the attitude of the poor. A spokesman for the Wood Street Mission said that the numbers applying for help were greater than ever and offered the dire warning that ‘to these the approach of winter with today’s prices for foodstuffs is likely to lead to starvation, whilst clothing and footwear are already an impossibility in many houses. The mothers in these homes bear their burdens ungrudgingly, knowing that they are doing their bit in the service of the nation.’

Even the mothers’ stoicism was not enough to meet the growing need. At least one local newspaper believed that communal food kitchens were essential if many more people were not to go hungry. It was not even possible to drown one’s sorrows – beer was so scarce in the city that many brewers were rationing their pubs. Hardy Crown Brewery’s 108 pubs were open only at the weekend and others introduced restricted hours.

The abiding image of 1917 was that of badly clothed women queuing in the raw, cold morning in the hope of getting a little margarine. Inconvenience and discomfort were not the worst effects of this: the city coroner, Mr Sellars, surmised that the increase in child fatalities was a result of mothers spending so much time queuing for food.