Charles Orwin raises many good questions in his comment yesterday.
A family I know well foresaw the war in 1938 and bought about five years supply of wine and spirits. When war came their wine merchant imposed a quota system restricting customers to a percentage of their 1938 spending. There was no government rationing of alcohol but prices rose as supplies of some items became scarce.
Petrol was rationed from 1939 – 1942 after which the only way to buy fuel was using “essential-user” coupons. No doubt Members of Parliament etc were essential users. Perhaps people had a private petrol pump, although that would not last for five years. After the war my grandfather bought a manually operated petrol pump from a garage at Bellewstown and jolly useful it was in the 1970s oil crisis. During the war he bicycled a lot.
Food rationing did cause resentment as rich folk could eat out in restaurants and hotels; both exempt from ration restrictions. In 1942 a cap of five shillings was introduced to inadequately address this unfairness. Chips seems to eat out more in the war but it’s a mystery how he got enough food for parties at Belgrave Square and Kelvedon. My mother supplemented her rations by breeding rabbits.
Charles is right. Today there would be public outrage if Boris had an extra pork pie. Chequers and Downing Street were both well provisioned in the war and this went without criticism as far as I am aware.
My pronunciation of “Ghislaine” has been vindicated today. The BBC called her Gill-lane, to rhyme with Mill Lane. Ian Maxwell called his sister this morning Gillen, to rhyme with villain. Watching a TV panel show taught me. One of the panellists on What’s My Line? was Ghislaine Alexander whose father was the Dutch consul in London in the war. Her mother became Lady Kemsley and all three appear in Chips’s diaries. Ghislaine is on the left in this picture. The set looks like a village hall production.
“A family I know well foresaw the war in 1938 and bought about five years supply of wine and spirits.” Sounds like my sort of family!
America lives on liquid enthusiasm now and during the war. Rumor has it some Coke exec or Pepsi pusher in the wartime executive thought it a grand idea to ration …coffee. Howls of protest from all quarters in the States as well our good neighbors to the south lead to a quick reversal and the Republic returned to the hot Robusta swill so beloved by mid century America and thus the Big War was won.
Liquid enthusiasm is what I call Dutch courage, as unfair an expression as going Dutch. Small countries in Europe got kicked around like fate’s footballs in the 20th century.