by Susie Hodge
Maisie Walker remembers her childhood Christmases:
“Newspaper was used to make Christmas trimmings. After being cut in strips and threaded through each other and being dabbed with a tiny bit of glue to make them stick, these paper chains were pinned across the ceilings with wool pompoms hanging in between. The pompoms were made by using the cardboard covers that used to cover bottles of milk. Two of these put together made nice sized woolly pompom because the middle of the cardboard could be pressed out without using scissors to cut it. Often any glittery jewellery was strung over the chains just to make it look a bit more festive. Unfortunately Christmas trees were not available during the war but we still did what we could to make the place look jolly. Children did not have expensive toys then but seemed content with an old sock of Dad’s that had been filled up with an orange and an apple plus a few sweets and a comic or a drawing book and crayons. The highlight would be a brand new shining penny to spend that was found in the toe of the sock.”
During the Blitz, for those in targeted locations, Christmas was celebrated in their shelters. Many recall the parties in the London Underground where strangers mingled with each other and parties overlapped. The feeling of camaraderie was never stronger. In at least one station a Christmas tree was put up with gifts on it for the children, some of whom dressed up in whatever costumes or finery their families could find for them. Various voluntary groups, including London Transport workers, members of the WVS and the Salvation Army, handed out sweets to the children and sold hot drinks, sandwiches and other snacks. The Salvation Army also sent out parties of carol singers to tour Underground stations on Christmas night, culminating in a large and charming concert in King’s Cross station. In other shelters, people started their own carol singing groups, played games and ate picnics they had made beforehand. In the run up to Christmas newspapers and magazines had made plenty of suggestions about how people could celebrate the day, whether in a location that was being heavily bombed, or far away in the country. Either way, the hardships made things difficult. For those going into shelters, some rather unusual sandwich fillings were suggested, such as tinned tomatoes and Marmite, cream cheese and redcurrant jelly, or peanut butter with a savoury sauce. Amid a general feeling of making the day as special as possible, while accepting that it was different, Good Housekeeping published a recipe for a Shelter Christmas Cake:
“The Anderson Shelter is a byword with most of us now and makes an amusing and topical subject for a cake, especially if there are children in the family. Bake the cake mixture in an oblong mould or small bread tin and allow to cool, then cover each side with a layer of marzipan, cutting a small ‘door’ out of the front piece. Next, cut and fix a piece right over the top, marking corrugations with a skewer. Gather the trimmings and knead in enough cocoa to make the colour of earth and bank them up against the sides of the shelter. Finally, cover with a layer of snow made by melting six or eight marshmallows and pouring over. Leave a clearing in front of the ‘shelter’ for a path and sprinkle with finely chopped burnt almonds to imitate gravel.”
It seems odd that at a time when everyone was trying to pretend things were normal and so many disliked the dark, damp shelters that the magazine recommended making a cake that looked like one. In 1945, several months after the war ended, but rationing continued, the Ministry of Food published an article in Good Housekeeping entitled “Festive Fare for Christmas”. It began:
“Don’t you feel you and the family have earned the right to a little festivity this Christmas? To make the Christmas pudding, the Christmas cake and other seasonable things a little nearer to your memories of what such goodies should be? Well, the Ministry of Food has issued a leaflet containing some delightful suggestions and recipes.”
The article continued with a few sample recipes, such as:
Macaroons
1 tablespoon water
1 oz margarine
1 teaspoon ratafia or almond essence
2 oz sugar
2 oz soya flour
Melt the margarine in the water; add the essence and sugar, then the soya flour. Turn on to a board and knead well. Roll mixture into balls, flatten slightly and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes till golden brown.
The Ministry of Food also published advertisements in newspapers and magazines. One was called “Christmas Fancies” that suggested two recipes to “fill the children’s stockings”. These were gingerbread men and honeycomb toffee.
Gingerbread Men
2 oz sugar or syrup
2 oz margarine
8 oz plain flour
½ level teaspoon mixed spice
2 level teaspoons ginger
Lemon substitute
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Melt the syrup or sugar and margarine. Pour into a bowl. Add some flour and the spice and lemon substitute. Stir well. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a tablespoon of tepid water and add to the mixture. Continue stirring, gradually adding more flour. Finish the process by turning out the mixture on to a well-floured board. Knead in the remainder of the flour. Roll a small ball for the head, flatten it and place it on the baking tin. Roll an oblong for the body and strips for the arms and legs. Join these together with a little reconstituted egg and put currants for the eyes.
As each year passed the war made Christmas more difficult. Cards became smaller, less extravagant and printed on flimsy paper rather than card; wrapping paper and labels were hard to find and Christmas trees were in short supply. Those that were sold were expensive and were usually chopped down parts of larger trees. People became quite inventive, making their own “Christmas trees” out of tinsel and wire, cardboard, twigs painted white or small bushes or trees dug up from the garden and replaced after the event. In 1942 an article in the Radio Times announced: “Christmas trees are scarce and very expensive, and imitation ones prohibitive in price, so a few carefully cherished flowers or small sprays of holly will, I expect, provide the Christmas decorations in most homes.” But many families were not content with making do in this way and tales of creativity are rife. Some recall bending wire coat hangers or chicken wire, covering these in paper or cotton wool and decorating them with small lights or small objects. These were usually put in windows to be seen from without before the blackout and from within to brighten the home during the long evenings. Shapes for these makeshift decorations ranged from snowmen, to trees, to large stars. Janet Simpson remembered collecting old, finished light bulbs and painting them with silver and gold paint, then tying them with thread and hanging them on their wire and paper tree which they had painted green. “We stuck coloured stars on the tree and made tiny ‘presents’ out of empty matchboxes and hung those on too.”
As ever, magazines were full of creative ideas. Stitchcraft was published from 1932 to 1982 for “needlewomen”. It began essentially to market branded wools, but it continued to be published for 50 years and moved on from its initial purpose. Although popular and helpful during the war years, it was difficult to keep filled with ideas, as many types of wool, yarns, fabrics, threads and trimmings that were needed to create most stitched or knitted items became unobtainable. The magazine shrank to half its original size, was printed on insubstantial paper and sometimes covered two months at a time. Yet it continued to try to appeal to readers and in 1941, it published various ideas and instructions for making Christmas toys and decorations. It began:
“There will be very few toys in the shops this Christmas, but there is no reason why you should not have plenty on the family tree, provided you are ready to spend a little time and thought on making them. Here are several ideas which those who are quick-fingered will be able to make quite easily…You need brightly coloured enamel paints in as many colours as you can find; glue; small pieces of stout paper or thin cardboard; and plenty of space to work in, as you are going to make a glorious mess.”
The editorial continued with instructions for making a Christmas tree:
“Roll a tube of thic
k paper, any colour…The ends, snipped down for two inches, are bent outwardly for the base and inwardly for the tip later on. Glue firmly in position along the long edge and paint in any bright colour. Now make different sized squares of paper, the largest 15 inches square, and the smallest six inches square. Roll these into cone shapes, glue in position and paint green. When dry, fix to trunk with fine twine or linen thread. Use a sharp needle that will pass through the tube easily without bending it out of shape. Cover the main trunk in this way, the small cones at the top and the large ones at the bottom, working up from the base. Paint a few white or silver spots here and there on the cones, or, if you have any silver frost, stick on some of that instead. Finish off the top by gluing together the slits at one end very firmly so that they form a point to be gathered together at the top by a big ribbon bow.”
Although they had remained popular tree decorations before the war, candles were rarely used during the war, partly because of the fire hazard and partly because everyone held on to their candles in case bombings caused electricity failures. Eric Brown recalled making a simple circuit of coloured fairy lights he found from before the war and connecting the two end wires to his bicycle lamp battery. His parents used this to illuminate their tree (a branch cut from a tree in the garden and painted white) for the duration of the war. Other decoration ideas included making a strong solution of Epsom salts and painting this on to holly leaves or dipping the leaves into the mixture. When it dried, the white salts sparkled like frost. Jean Pink made her own wrapping paper and labels with potato prints on newspaper.
Christmas 1943 saw shortages at their height but magazines continued to offer creative and enterprising methods for making decorations and presents, such as knitted slippers, scarves and gloves, brooches made from scraps of wool, felt or buttons, and embroidered bookmarks and calendars. Most people made their own crackers, using more old newspapers and string, filling them with tiny items like hairclips, sweets, marbles or even small coins. Pat Parsons, who was 10 when the war broke out, remembered what happened in her house:
“My mother used to keep a ‘Christmas box’. All through the year she’d collect bits and pieces and put them in the box. So many things went into that box; thimbles, bits of paper, ribbons, hard-to-come-by sweet wrappers or even sweets themselves, scraps of fabric, string and buttons, for example, and at the end of the year, we opened the box and used the things in there. Things like thimbles, hair clips, pretty buttons, tin whistles or sweets went into our homemade crackers, which we made from newspaper and string. There were no bangs in our crackers – we’d had enough of bangs during air raids!”
Peggy Johnson, who was six when the war began, lived in East Anglia. She remembered:
“By bartering I think, my grandfather usually managed to get us a small Christmas tree which we decorated with our pre-war decorations. These were carefully wrapped up each year in newspaper and kept in a box in a cupboard. I spent hours making paper chains out of newspaper which I painted with my small box of paints and I was allowed to use a tiny bit of flour to make paste to glue the strips together. I made our Christmas cards too – out of small pieces of paper or card. Father Christmas would leave me a stocking containing a piece of fruit, a sixpence, sometimes a pencil, hankies or something knitted, like a scarf or mittens.”
Even before the war Christmases were not extravagant celebrations and presents for most were modest, but as things became ever more stringent, it was extremely difficult for families to find gifts for each other. Most presents were practical; seeds, gardening tools, bottled fruit, books or bath salts for example. The most popular present in 1940 was soap. Fewer toys were available and people began selling second-hand toys and games, often at extortionate prices. Many people made toys, some following the instructions in newspapers and magazines, for things such as rag dolls and glove puppets or knitted animals made from old worn clothes or dolls’ houses, sweetshops or post offices, made from old packets and cartons. Audrey Thorpe recalled: “The only toys I remember getting at Christmases during the war were knitted ones! Knitted dolls, a clown, a rabbit and a lion – I think my mum made most of them, but she might have been helped by my Auntie Maureen!”
Treats
In 1944, the last Christmas of the war, the Ministry of Food announced that it would be giving everyone extra treats that year. These included an extra one and a half pounds of sugar, eight (old) pennies’ worth of meat and half a pound of sweets. In one of the many ideas for homemade gifts that year, an article in Woman’s Weekly proposed a personally decorated box of matches:
“…A box of matches makes a very welcome gift. If you want to make this more important-looking, dress the box up by sticking a scrap of pretty wallpaper, or decorative Christmas paper at the front and back of it. Should you have more than one box to give away, a packet of one or two, decorated differently and tied with a ribbon, makes the present something other than mere matches.”
9
OUTSIDE THE HOME
“The nation is united when danger looms in sight; we march
along together and sing with all our might.” ~ From We must all
stick together written by Ralph Butler and R. Wallace in 1939
Before the war, approximately 19 million people in Britain went to the cinema each week. By 1945, despite about 330 cinemas having been destroyed by bombs, the number of cinema-goers had risen to 30 million and box office takings had doubled. From 4th September 1939, British cinema was governed by the Ministry of Information. Responsible for publicity and propaganda throughout the war, the Ministry aimed to “present the national case to the public at home and abroad”. It recognised the importance of the cinema in maintaining morale and maintained close contact with film-makers in Britain. Yet it was Hollywood films that were the most popular with the public, such as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Brief Encounter and Henry V, as they were colourful and glamorous, while British films were more focused on depicting the courage of the Forces in action. These were popular, but not as escapist as the American films. Top British stars of the time included Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, James Mason and Margaret Lockwood, while Hollywood stars that kept everyone flocking in included Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Charlie Chaplin, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake. During the early years of the war, when Britain was facing the possibility of invasion and defeat by the Nazis and America was remaining detached from the war, the MGM producer Sidney Franklin made a film as a tribute to Britain at war. Mrs Miniver was the story of a middle-class English family in the Blitz, starring Greer Garson. Without a single battle scene in the film, the sentimental portrayal of the hardships endured and surmounted by the British family inspired derision and contempt from British film-goers, but great sympathy among the Americans and as a result, American support for involvement in the war increased significantly. Winston Churchill described the film as “propaganda worth 100 battleships”.
Shops and shopping
Cinema, dances, theatre and other forms of entertainment were imperative in keeping up people’s spirits. But they were only a means of escapism as everyone continued to face immense difficulties every day through the shortages, dangers (for those in areas that were bombed) and anxieties of separation and the safety of loved-ones far away. While many previously house-proud individuals had to leave their dirty clothes and dishes piling up, could not renovate their houses, and could only bath once a week, many others found the strain of putting an appetising meal on the table each day was even more testing. On top of this, whatever they did outside the home, whether in voluntary services, war work or anything else, everyone had to queue. In many towns, queuing was unavoidable, whether it was for food, buses, trains, or even cinemas, and without supermarkets or fridges, housewives often had to queue at several shops every day. In the main towns and cities, they waited patiently in line outside butchers’, bakers’, grocers’ and greengrocers’ often for hours at a time, frequently
to discover that when they reached the counter, that whatever it was they had been queuing for had sold out. Others refused to queue. Peggy Milroy who lived in West London for a large part of the war remembers:
“Everyone queued – everywhere! For shoes, newspapers, toiletries, for – you name it, we queued. But it was always done politely; we accepted that we were all in the same boat.”
In smaller towns and villages, the shopkeepers ensured that everyone received their allocated share. Barbara Matthews, who lived in Hertfordshire, remembered:
“In my experience there was no queuing for rationed food because you always got your proper share with no trouble in the course of normal shopping. The only queuing was when people heard that something unusual (like a cargo of bananas) had arrived and then it was first come first served. The shopkeepers gave a set, reasonable amount to each customer. Not huge amounts. We never bothered with queuing for unusual things; we just lived on our rations and what we raised in our back garden. We thought people queuing for a few biscuits or sweets (before they were rationed at the end of the war) were silly.”
With no new produce to display on shelves and in windows, shopkeepers often used empty crates or boxes, or plaster models of the items that they previously had in abundance. To avoid any uncomfortable scenes, empty cartons and packets used like this for display were often labelled “empty packet, for display purposes only”. Rationed food could only be bought where housewives had registered, so if they worked, they had to queue during their lunch breaks or after work in the blackout. Queuing in the blackness was not pleasant, but in their desperation to keep their families fed and home lives as “normal” as possible, queuing became a routine. Many women were known to queue wherever they saw a line forming, only asking what they were queuing for once they were standing there. Queuing became such an integral aspect of life that in 1942, the Minister of War Transport issued a “Statutory Rule and Order” on the subject. It included:
