Searching for the Real Austerity

 

I was born in a time of austerity and shortage in 1947. I can just about remember seeing my parents' ration books and my mother always claimed that my face was a picture when I first saw a banana at the age of about three. Food was probably a bit short, but I don't think we went hungry. Although I do have memories of tripe and onions, which is something I wouldn't eat now!

I can also remember my father burning his identity card with a lot of joyous ceremony and sternly telling me that only Nazis and Communists made people carry things like that. Brown beware!

But really I know little of my parents' struggles to feed my younger sister and myself.

The success of the book, Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston, illustrates how many of us want to find out more about this part of our history. It was a time, when the end of the Second World War should have thrown off all of the gloom and danger. It should have led us quickly into a much better future.

But it didn't! Or did it?

I don't know, as I was too young to experience the trials and tribulations.

Last year, a friend who like me had attended Minchenden Grammar School in Southgate, David Dell, purchased the school papers of Ian Campbell, who had been a earlier student at the school in the 1940s.

The papers are a gold-mine of interesting and unusual information. Perhaps the real nuggets are his letters home to his parents whilst he was on a month-long school trip.

Not as one would expect to say Southend, Brighton, Bognor or some accessible area of the UK, but to the South of France! It must have been a tremendous adventure.

I have started to find out more about this trip, as it gives a whole new angle to what was happening at the time. But at a first look it doesn't seem to be as untypical as you would think.

The final intention of my quest is as yet unknown. But as I have helped several people self-publish books of their memoires and stories on the Internet, I can see myself doing the same with this untold story of a time where things appeared to be bad.

But were they?

I've started a blog on Wordpress at minchenden1947.wordpress.com, where people can watch the progress of my search and also add any comments they wish.