CONDITIONS IN SCOTLAND

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25272, 26 August 1947, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN SCOTLAND

FOOD SHORTAGES AND COLD

Personal experiences of the hardships being experienced in the United Kingdom during the early part of this year were recounted yesterday by Mr J. Ritchie, a journalist from Dundee, Scotland, who has come to settle in New Zealand and who is staying at present in Christchurch. Conditions were hard in Scotland, he said, but he understood the plight of many people in England was even worse. “The average family man has had no butter for four years,” said Mr Ritchie. “He makes his ration available for his children. Butter and margarine are on a weekly ration and, even with careful planning, the butter is used by Thursday and the margarine by Friday, so that for two days there are usually no fats. Fried foods are not prepared because of the shortage of fats. A fried egg (if available) would be a real luxury. Fats are the number one shortage at present.” Jam was sold on a monthly ration; but the quota seldom lasted more than a week. If a housewife hoped to make some jam of her own no sugar could be used for hot drinks.

The egg quota aimed to give one egg a person a .week; but there were long periods when none would be available. “In the last two or three years a three-course meal has been an event,” said Mr Ritchie. “Most frequently soup and pudding is the rule and there have been times when we had soup alone. I have also known occasions when my wife has told me not to come home for lunch as there was no food available. On one day a week we could have a meat dish.”

Children’s rations were supplemented with cod liver oil and bottled orange juice. “Old people are very hard hit, particularly those living alone,” said Mr Ritchie. “For the latter, present conditions really mean slow starvation. Where there are two or three in a family it is easier; but it is very difficult to eke out one person’s ration. “The cold in the first two months of this year was intense,” he added. “Many old-age pensioners could not go out in the snow and only the help of neighbours saved them. Coal was often not available and often my family would go to bed at 6 p.m. to keep warm. We converted the living room into a bed-sitting room for company. When power cuts came we had to resort to candles.”