h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was talking to a bloke in a Westminster pub one day and I asked about the blitz,he told me about a woman he knew that had been hit in the foot by a piece of shrapnel.Naturally the poor woman was in tears but when my acquaintance went to comfort her she was crying for her shoes not because of her injury.

Even power was rationed at times. My parents married in 1947 and the electricity was due to be turned off shortly after the start of the ceremony. Determined to at least go up the aisle to organ accompaniment, she made sure to get to the church early and duly proceeded to the altar, despite not everyone else having arrived.

I remember chocolate coming off the ration. I think it was the very last thing. Up till then I had been allowed one very tiny bar oc Cadbury's Milk (costing, I think 1d) a week. The day I went to the shop to buy a 6d bar will remain with me forever (I was around 4!)

Fuel rationing finished in May 1950 followed by soap in September that year.

Most important for the English, tea rationing ended in 1952!

Sugar came off rationing in 1953 but the rationing of meat and bacon - the last items rationed - didn't end until July 1954.

shazz

Yes I can remember that, I was eight in 1947 and I remember the power being turned off at regular intervals. It would be announced on the radio when your district was going to be turned off; it was called "load shedding." We also had a really terrible winter in '47 with lots of snow and really low temperatures - seemed to go on for months. Luckily we didn't use electricity for heating - good old fashioned coal, but that was rationed as well.

I remember the queues when there was a consignment of oranges at the greengrocers, and the first time that bananas were back. How my mother managed to feed us so well I just don't know, but we did live in the country and near the sea so our rations were supplemented with the odd rabbit and plenty of the local flounders. We had a box of kippers sent from the Isle of Man each week during the summer season and I went round delivering the orders to our neighbours, I think they cost 1s2d. for two pairs.