REALLY HUNGRY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 55, Issue 32748, 7 August 1946, Page 11

REALLY HUNGRY

PEOPLE OF ENGLAND FOOD PARCELS WELCOMED LETTER TO WAITAKARURU “There is no doubt that we are now really hungry, and so I am more than ever grateful to you for your welcome parcels,” states a letter, describing present day conditions in the United Kingdom, received by Mrs C. Wallace of Waitakaruru from her sister in England. Thanks are tendered for parcels received and the writer states that she had made underclothing from the cloth around mutton. Clothing Ration The 40 clothing coupons are stated to be inadequate, even for bare necessities. The numbers required for various articles are: 2<7 for a suit; 0 for a pair of shoes; 9 for a man’s shirt, 24 for a woman’s costume, so, the letter says, there are few left for other things. Rationed Food The rationed' goods are as follows: Pei’ week: Butter 2 oz., lard 1 oz , margarine ® oz., cheese 3‘ oz., sugar i lb., meat Is 2d worth (including bones and fat), tea 2 oz. with 1 oz. extra each month, bacon ; 3 oz., milk 2. pints, matches 1 box. iPer month: Jam or marmalade 1 lb., soap 2 lb., and one small packet of soap powder or flakes, sweets 4 lb. Unrationed Foods Scarce Twenty-four points are allowed for unrationed goods per month, but these are more often than not unprocurable. The points are allotted thus: 16 golden syrup, 8 biscuits (1 lb.), 16 chocolate biscuits, 8 suet (i lb.), 2'4 tinned spam. 82 tinned steak, 18 cooked dinners, 4 tinned puddings, 2, —4,—-6 sardine® .(according to size), 1'2 —48 salmon (grade 1), 6—B—l2' salmon (grade 2). 16 currants, 8 sultanas, 8i dates, 8 figs, 8 prunes, 8 tinned tongue, 4-8 tinned beans and spaghetti and peas, 4 jellies. Prices of Goods High The writer has had 11 lb. of apples since Christmas, when there were also a very few oranges and lemons on the market. Three small tomatoes cost lOd and two were so green that they had to be kept for a fortnight. One cauliflower, hardly enough for, one person, cost IQld. i iSmall packets of starch and 1 custard powder were very occasionally available, but no cornflower or other pudding cereals, and puddings could not be served as there was no fat, milk or sugar to make them with. The bakers are not allowed to make cakes —only bread and tea cakes, and the bread is now worse than it was during' the last war and unpalatable. Fish and Chips The writer of the letters receives lib. of liver once in three weeks but never any dripping, which goes to the fish and chip shops. “ What a blessing these shops are,” reads one of the letters. “ The children crowd around the doors during the few hours that they are open at nights for 2d worth of chips—no more can be bought, and the same quantity once cost sd. They had no coal during the winter and found it hard to keep warm.