01/06/2026
The Power Of The Ration Book
Seventy years after the end of food rationing in 1954, we know that shopping for limited food supplies during WWII and beyond was no fun for the housewife. However, it was equally as difficult, if not more so, on the other side of the shop counter. For 15 years, shopkeepers coped with mounds of official paperwork to ensure that the rationing system worked at every level, well before food reached a family’s table.
Fred White and his daughter Muriel ran White’s Stores at Flintham Nottinghamshire. During 1939, as war approached, women had begun to stockpile food ‘just in case’. Many shopkeepers bought extra food and put up their prices – hence the need for the Prices of Goods Act in 1939.
During 1939, Fred White’s ordering pattern was similar to previous years, but he sent his wholesaler a large order, just days before war was declared on 3 September. Unfortunately, his wholesaler was unable to deliver a number of the requested items, especially sugar, because their warehouse shelves were empty; shopkeepers had been stocking up for months.
In 1931, Flintham’s population was 242. By early 1940 people all round the country were on the move, and the exact number of people living in Flintham at the beginning of rationing, 8 January 1940, is not known. Shopkeepers realised that to ensure they received rationed items to sell they must persuade housewives to register with them. Many women, with memories of severe food shortages during WWI, and perhaps unsure of whether rationing would work, registered with more than one shopkeeper. This was not so easy for those who lived in rural areas where there was little or no choice of retail outlets.
Fred’s handwritten lists show that 133 people were registered with him in 1941 for sugar, jam, butter, fats and cheese. The population would have dropped as men left to join the Forces, but to what extent did Fred have to be especially nice to his female customers to ensure they placed their ration books at his shop? Did some younger women register with Newark grocers, especially if they worked at the ball bearing or munitions factories in Newark?
Come back to get a feel of the variety of instructions from the M*F, the continuous ‘do’s and don’ts’ issued on tiny slips of paper, and decide whether being a shopkeeper was more difficult than being a housewife with decreasing food resources.
