I was brought up during the war and remember rationing only too well. There three were different colours, fawn for adults, blue for children and green for expectant mothers. You had to register with the grocer for your goods. My mother registered us with different shops for different items.
The Co-op grocery for bacon, cheese, butter and eggs. Proctors on Newtown Row for meat, and Taylors our local corner shop (corner of Burlington and Talford streets) for sugar, tea, sweets and most other things.
We used to give Mr. & Mrs. Taylor our list and then collect our grocery later, he was so kind to us kids and used to give us a small triangular bag with broken sweets and the bits that used to stick to the bottom of the jars.
I have written elsewhere that people used to swop things, i.e. if someone didn't use much sugar they would swop it for something else. My mom worked at Hercules and it was common practice. I was also sent to butchers - any butchers to get offal as it was off the ration.
Another chore was if there was a queue at Griffins for tomatoes or fruit I would often be sent to wait in the queue until I neared the front and mom would take over.
Clothes were also on ration and I had two teenage sisters growing up during the war and they would scrounge round for extra coupons off older people, I guess they had to pay for them but were delighted when they could get them.
