LARDER SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 41, 16 August 1941, Page 9

LARDER SCHEME

FEEDING OF BRITAIN

EMERGENCY PLANS

100 INDEPENDENT

SECTIONS

I (Rec. 10.10 a.m.) RUGBY, August 15. I A "shadow larder" scheme covering all Britain, in the event of invasion or what is described as the "worst blitz which the most p'es- | simistic imagination could devise," has been outlined by the Minister | of Food, Lord Woolton. He said that the scheme is based on the assumption that there would be a breakdown in communications. There were already large stocks of food in the wholesale warehouses and retail shops, he said, and in addition to the large resources on farms and in private houses, emergency stocks of food had been built up. The country had been divided into 19 areas from which the department had created a hundred bulkhead sections, each entirely independent of outside sources in an emergency as regards food supplies for the maintenance of the people, for a period of time which varied according to area. The department had worked in close co-operation with the military authorities, who had given their views as to the amount of food they want to be in each particular area. Traders had arranged mutual agreements of assistance, so that if one was put out of action another could take its place in'providing supplies. The Minister said they had booked centres for the creation of emergency shops in various towns, so as to deal with "post-blitz conditions." They had

also arranged emergency wholesale depots. In the smaller towns and villages they had organised a service of 2500 men who would act as voluntary food officers to distribute stocks of food if there was a gas attack, and had also issued special tarpaulins to cover food stocks and prevent them being damaged by gas. SERVICES AFTER RAIDS. The .first line of defence for the public immediately after a severe raid was a system .of '"Queen's Messengers" con- j voys. THere were 22 of these convoj's ready to go out at a moment's notice to take food to stricken people in bombed tov/ns. The second line of defence was the British restaurants, which would be the centres of eating in the event of a town being severely bombed. This scheme had been rather slow in developing. There were now 800 of these restaurants in operation, 300 more had been approved, and a further 300 local authorities were just being established. These were serving some 170,000 meals [ daily, and this was being increased at j the rate of about 40,000 a week. New j restaurants, he said, are being approved | and put into operation at the rate of j2O to 50 a week, and the figure is in- j I creasing. The third line of defence, said the Minister, was emergency meal centres | arranged in halls and schools near the | outskirts of a town. They would be found in all towns of over 50,0001 people, and were designed to feed 10 per cent, of the population. There were also rest centres run by the Ministry of Health through the public assistance j authorities. IN THE MAIN CENTRES. In London and 30 provincial towns, he said, there were now feeding arrangements in the public air-raid shelters Under the emergency scheme all catering shops had been unified. It was believed that they would ' be able to stand almont any strain in London by the preparations that had now been made for feeding. All the large ports had been treated as battlefields so that doctors and workers could be fed in any emergency, and arrangements were being completed to protect in a similar way both large and small industrial centres—in fact, any place which would possibly become a target.—B.O.W.