OT- historical context for wartime British coins
laurentyvan
Posts: 4,243 ✭✭✭
Wartime deprivation in England
We have many British coin collectors in our ranks and we get to see a variety of coins here that is at times overwhelming and sublime, other times nicely ordinary. I enjoy the historical context that coins existed in and I’ll never look at wartime coins from England the same way again. There is a recent time in history where the coins and money of the English people did them no good. I am speaking of WWII, a time of deprivation for the English people that lasted from about 1940 and did not end until 9 years after the war, in 1954.
American soldiers coming over to Britain in 1942 were given an official booklet of advice reminding them that the British had been at war more than two years longer than they and that deprivation had become a way of life.
So stop and think before you sound off about lukewarm beer or cold
boiled potatoes, or the way English cigarettes taste. If British civilian
look dowdy or badly dressed, it is not because they do not like good
clothes or how to wear them. Old clothing is rationed… old clothes
are good form.
They had to be, because in Britain a man was allowed to buy a new suit only every two years, a new shirt only every 20 months. All commodities scarce in the US were even scarcer in the United Kingdom and there were some shortages americans never experienced, like blankets, bottles, drinking glasses, pots and pans and cutlery, soap, paper bags, bandages and drugs, bed sheets and towels, paper clips, needles, thermos bottles, carpets, combs, and golf balls. Of course petrol and heating oil were not to be had and coal was extremely scarce.
Food especially, much harder to come by then in America.Rigorous rationing began in January, 1940, and it did not end entirely until 1954. Virtually everything you liked to eat or drink was available only in miniscule quantities:
Meat, butter, cheese, eggs, sugar, sweets, apples, grapes, melons, fats, white bread (replaced by a grey “utility loaf”), tea, coffee, whisky and pepper; and some things were so rare as to be virtually unobtainable and among some people not even known, like onions, oranges and lemons, and bananas. The only things usually available were fish, oatmeal, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and turnips. Animal offal was occasionaly offered by ones butcher…
One greengrocer displayed in the center of his shopwindow “one large onion, a pink ribbon tied around its middle, and, propped against it, a placard with the words
‘Very Rare.’ (An early e-bayer no doubt)
I was very struck by the book that I read all this in and borrowed from– it’s called
Wartime, by Paul Fussell, Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War.
It, and a companion volume about WWI entitled The Great War and Modern Memory have done more to enlighten me about the two great wars than anything else I have ever read in my life. I strongly recommend them.
And now, back to your coins...
We have many British coin collectors in our ranks and we get to see a variety of coins here that is at times overwhelming and sublime, other times nicely ordinary. I enjoy the historical context that coins existed in and I’ll never look at wartime coins from England the same way again. There is a recent time in history where the coins and money of the English people did them no good. I am speaking of WWII, a time of deprivation for the English people that lasted from about 1940 and did not end until 9 years after the war, in 1954.
American soldiers coming over to Britain in 1942 were given an official booklet of advice reminding them that the British had been at war more than two years longer than they and that deprivation had become a way of life.
So stop and think before you sound off about lukewarm beer or cold
boiled potatoes, or the way English cigarettes taste. If British civilian
look dowdy or badly dressed, it is not because they do not like good
clothes or how to wear them. Old clothing is rationed… old clothes
are good form.
They had to be, because in Britain a man was allowed to buy a new suit only every two years, a new shirt only every 20 months. All commodities scarce in the US were even scarcer in the United Kingdom and there were some shortages americans never experienced, like blankets, bottles, drinking glasses, pots and pans and cutlery, soap, paper bags, bandages and drugs, bed sheets and towels, paper clips, needles, thermos bottles, carpets, combs, and golf balls. Of course petrol and heating oil were not to be had and coal was extremely scarce.
Food especially, much harder to come by then in America.Rigorous rationing began in January, 1940, and it did not end entirely until 1954. Virtually everything you liked to eat or drink was available only in miniscule quantities:
Meat, butter, cheese, eggs, sugar, sweets, apples, grapes, melons, fats, white bread (replaced by a grey “utility loaf”), tea, coffee, whisky and pepper; and some things were so rare as to be virtually unobtainable and among some people not even known, like onions, oranges and lemons, and bananas. The only things usually available were fish, oatmeal, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and turnips. Animal offal was occasionaly offered by ones butcher…
One greengrocer displayed in the center of his shopwindow “one large onion, a pink ribbon tied around its middle, and, propped against it, a placard with the words
‘Very Rare.’ (An early e-bayer no doubt)
I was very struck by the book that I read all this in and borrowed from– it’s called
Wartime, by Paul Fussell, Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War.
It, and a companion volume about WWI entitled The Great War and Modern Memory have done more to enlighten me about the two great wars than anything else I have ever read in my life. I strongly recommend them.
And now, back to your coins...
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
0
Comments
Also iron railings outside of houses were all sawn down for the war effort, funny how Buckingham Palace kept there's, whilst we have a big gap. Even churches lost their railings. Surviving examples are not common in some areas at all.
And everyone had an Anderson Shelter... that was usually full of water anyhow.
Come on over ... to The Dark Side!
Journalists of the time became, in essence, lap dogs for the government, toeing the party line. I'm not convinced this level of censorship could exist today, yet it was probably necessary at the time.
American soldiers for instance were furious with the american public for their failure to understand what the troops were going through. As you read Fussell's account of the war, we can understand why.
Their dominent thinking was broken down into three stages-
OK, we're here, I can help, I can make a difference; I'm not scared of dying because I'm too good, too quick, too charitable, too young, etc., take your pick.
Stage 2, OK, maybe I can help myself by being smarter than the enemy, by being quicker, planning better, digging a better foxhole, etc.
Stage 3, there is no way out except through victory or death.
After several campaigns, some divisions and regiments had mortality losses in excess of 150%.
The night before the D day invasion English jails throughout the land were jam-packed with deserters, sometimes 12 to a cell.
Fear was the predominent emotion, from lowest rank to highest in the field. Virtually everyone in battle soiled themselves due to fear. It was OK to be afraid, never OK to show the fear, yet this was a badge that virtually all our soldiers wore.
Everything I ever thought I knew about those wars is changing...
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
The price of greatness is responsibility. . . .