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Sweet Rations
"One had to have coupons to buy sweets.
They were cut out of your ration book at the point of sale,
or else you were given the coupons to enable you to buy the sweets.
A coupon giving you two ounce of purchase power was a treasure.
I remember when it was announced that
sweets would be coming off the ration,
I argued against that as I felt that it would not work. My parents
laughed and I remember Mr MacDonald also laughing. I felt that the
rich would buy all the sweets and the poor would be left out.
'Rationing at least meant that you got
your share' was how I figured it out. Well,
they did come off the ration and within
days there was hardly a sweetie to buy left in the shops. The
Sunday Post reported that a businessman,
with a car, had come into a sweetie shop with a suitcase and bought
the entire stock.
This was a talking point and
businessmen, with cars, were regarded with
suspicion. The only item that was left in most shops, was
crystallized ginger, which I now enjoy but at that time did not.
The Government bowed to pressure and put
sweets back on the ration. It seemed that a lack of sugar had
restricted the manufacturers' ability to
make extra supplies
I must have been a bit smug as I
explained that things would only work under a rationing system and
that I had been proved right.
When, not so
long after, they were again de-rationed
they had sufficient back-up supplies to overcome the initial surge
of demand."
Chocolate Machines
"My generation
used to look at the empty chocolate machines which in the Waverley
Station and other locations and wonder how it was possible to have
such a system that would work. Pre-war was another country to us
and one which we did not understand."
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