Women's Realm

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13247, 10 September 1943, Page 3

Women's Realm

NO NEW CLOTHES

DILEMMA FOR WOMEN IN BRITAIN COUPONS BECOMING RESPONSIBLE FOR SOCIAL CHANGES '“Why, the coupons will barely buy my stockings!” That is the a l feminine comment at the news that Britain’s clothes ration may be to 40 coupons for the 12 months commencing September 1, says veC “. R oS amuncl in the Overseas Daily Mail. Bet Amused and bewildered speculation has followed this announcement, after two years of rationing, many wardrobes are scanty and threadto'.' moaning tor replacements that the 40 coupons will render impos--1)316, o ?i,)1(? Many 0 f those women who have already attempted to plot out next wa rdrobe on paper have given up coupon arithmetic in despair. To them the only possible solution is to refrain from buying anything the most urgent purchases, until the passing year reveals what is left in the coupon “kitty.” Others, temperamentally incapable of a high degree of providence and thrift, will quickly dispose of their precious vouchers, and live to mourn the barren months. We’re in for a lean time. Put yourself, for a moment, in the place of a British housewife who doesn't mind how shabby she becomes so long as she can have her stockings. Experience has shown that the most durable pair of stockings disintegrates through sheer exhaustion after six -weeks’ wear. While thick woollen hosiery does, of course, stand the endurance test somewhat longer, it is almost unobtainable owing to shortage of wool. Mrs Housewife will, therefore, need to lay out 27 coupons for nine pairs of fully fashioned stockings (if she can get them). And she will certainly need a new pair of shoes before the year is out. That will mean •mother 5 coupons. After these two purchases, she is left with exactly 8 coupons. Just think of it! Only sufficient to buy a coat overall (6) and a pair of gloves (2). No provision can be made for a heavy winter coat, spring suit. Avoollen frock, summer dresses, slippers, or dressing-gown. She will be unable to renew her underwear, corsets, or handkerchiefs. She will not even be able to buy an ounce of knitting wool. Towels and teatowels, of course, out of the question.

By deciding on unfashioned stockings which take two instead of three coupons a pair, she could thus save nine coupons. But as these stockings are both ungainly and uncomfortable, many women consider such a choice too great a sacrifice in order to obtain one odd skirt (6). one face flannel (1), and eight handkerchiefs (2).

Many Home Guard units have found a way of getting sports wear and equipment. Each man in a unit contributes one of his personal coupons to a pool for the purchase of sports gear. Coupons have been responsible for a number of social changes. No longer do evening functions demand special dress. Now uniforms and day wear mingle harmoniously together whatever, the hour. Evening wear has been put to other uses. Billingsgate’s fish market recently has graced by a longtailed evening suit. Adopted neither for a wager nor as a stunt, it explained that it was “entirely to meet the coupon situation.”

As many husbands know only too well, their wives and daughters in the past have often been able to get extra blouses and bright scarves with masculine coupons. Now there is likely to be far less of this family looting. Men, too, are finding their clothes are getting threadbare after 21 months of rationing.

Should a man need a new suit (2C), that will leave him only 14 miions with which to buy one cotton shirt (5), one tie (1), two pairs of socks (G), and four handkerchiefs (2). This budgeting rules out shoes.

Women’s evening dresses have, of course, been making blouses, day frocks, and underwear for a longtime. A set of these transformations was shown at an exhibition staged in London last week by the Women’s Auxiliary Service. Among the many ingenious make-do-and-mend ideas was a net nightdress fashioned from an. old pair of drawing-room curtains, and a’ most npto-date boy’s lumberjacket devised from 32 separate pieces of material!

If he must have an overcoat (IS) before a suit that will mean he can also buy one pair of shoes (7), one shirt (5), three pairs of socks (9), and two handkerchiefs (1) with 40 coupons.

Either of these clothes schemes Prohibits vests and -pants, flannel trousers, pullover or cardigan;, mackintosh, pyjamas, dressing-gown, gloves, bathing costumes, scarf, and collars. there are no such optional schemes for parents. They must Hicrifice their coupons to > suppltehmnt the wardrobes of growing chille». Often grandmothers, grandethers, aunts and uncles come to the rescue as well.

But mending and make-do ideas are suitable only for those whose circumstances permit of a little spare time. The majority of Britain’s warworkers, however, have no option but to find someone to do their personal valeting. Here they experience many hardships. After perhaps giving up a meal-time to visit the dyers and cleaners, a woman frequently finds closed doors, and an announcement: “No more work taken until this notice is removed from the window.” On passing to the shoerepairers she will probably learn that her shoes cannot be repaired in less than a month!

the extreme difficulty experience(t in arranging for even the barest essentials is having a great effect u P°n such items as sports equipn'ent. Passing from one player to another f °otball boots boxing gloves . an( * t en nis shoes now rank as heir°°DlS ' n t' le sporting world.

The wear and tear of heavy work is a great strain upon our heavily mortgaged coupons. Women iiq munition factories must have slacks,

those delivering milk and bread need extra shoes. Though some workers, such as postwomen and land girls, have a special issue of uniform, thousands of women on war work are expected to provide their own protective clothing. Among these women is an unsung, but vitally imortant, section of the community—the original land girls, or those women living with their husbands in farm cottages whose tenancy provides for the women’s help on the land whenever needed. In weeding out thistles, plantingpotatoes .picking peas, and grading apples, they need more clothes than if they were just housewives alone. One woman told me how she wore out five pairs of old shoes during last autumn’s hop picking. These women are playing a vital part in the Battle of the Land, Unable to run their households to any set time-table, because sudden calls for help on the land play havoc with such household traditions as Monday washing day, they would appreciate just a few extra coupons. These would do much to alleviate that awful sinking feeling that overcomes any woman when, after a hard afternoon in the fields ,she finds that a vigorous young son has torn his trousers bird-nesting and that there is no suitable material in the house to patch them ,and no coupons to buy more. All our thoughts are concentrated upon mending. Stockings, of course, receive the most attention. Repair

shops have sprung up everywuere, including Regent-street, and they are working overtime providing new feet and mending ladders. Even so, it takes six weeks to have stockings mended in this way—a very awkward situation when one has but two pairs in circulation at a time. Men’s socks are likewise in the news. Mrs Bumpstead and Mrs Matthews,, 'of St. Philips-avenue, Worcester Park, London, have voluntarily darned 2,000 pairs for military patients.

Coupon-free sofcks have been sold in the Kingston and Surbiton districts by a pedlar with an attache case. His “Grade 1 socks,” at 3/a pair, turned out on closer inspection to be old one expertly darned, but what a sensation trey created while stocks lasted!

One thought was in every purchaser’s mind: “Wherever did the pedlar obtain his wares? Jumble sales —those prewar clearing centres of unwanted clothes —are now nearly extinct. Nobody dares give away airy clothes, for, even if garments are unwearable, they can as a last resort to cut up for polishing rags and floor cloths. There is a serious shortage of cleaning cloths in most household's to-day.

Those women who are by nature reluctant to cast away out-dated clothes have cause to rejoice. While their non-hoarding sisters are now wistfully reflecting upon the many uses to which they could have pulsome of the clothes they so enthusiastically rejected in peace-time, natural hoarders, are gleefully chopping five inches from the hems of six-year-old frocks arid launching them into society a second time. After several years’ retirement it is surprising how fresh our old clothes can look.

Old hats, too, are taking on new leases of life. When, recently, the Queen was shown hats remodelled by members of the British Legion Women’s Section at their London conference she said: “I have had an old hat of mine turned inside out and remade. It looks lovely and just like new.” Solutions are not always found to the problems created by coupon stringency, however. Centuries-old charities which, year by year, have been distributing to the poor have had to depart from the strict letter of their founders’ intentions. As clothes demand coupons, and most food is rationed, those poor widows of a village who formerly were given yards of flannel and a joint of meat at Christmas time are now, for the duration of the war, receiving money instead.