SENDING FOOD TO BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25245, 25 July 1947, Page 2

SENDING FOOD TO BRITAIN

PARGELS STILL WANTED DIFFICULTIES UNDER RATIONING SYSTEM An appeal to members of the Travel Club to continue to send parcels of food to Britain was made yesterday at a meeting of the club by Mrs A. C. Brassington, the guest speaker, who returned recently to New Zealand Irom a visit to Britain. “One year in England opened my eyes considerably to the value of these parcels,” she said. “No help we can give the people of Britain is too much to give. Thousands upon thousands have never yet had a food parcel.” The average housewife spent two or three hours daily in getting food, Mrs Brassington said. She described the endless queueing necessary to obtain food. “First'one had to queue to catch a bus, then queue at the counter for groceries, then queue again to pay for them. One joined a further queue to buy any extras on the points system, and then queued again to pay for them. If tomatoes or fish were available you queued for them and if you had no wrapping paper you had to carry the fish home naked in your hand,” Mrs Brassington continued. Describing the points system, she said that 32 points were allotted a month to each person. A small tin of tongues took the whole of one person s points for the month. A packet of jelly took six points. “The English people don’t like it, but they put up with it because it is mainly a fair system,” she added.

There was very little “black marketing” in England. Paris presented the other side of the picture, Mrs Brassington said. There, it was possible to buy excellent food on the black market. “You can buy anything you want in Paris, if you can pay for it. It is quite usual for a wife to use almost the whole of their combined substantial salaries just on living,” she said. “The poor people come off pretty badly.”