The Wartime House

Home Life in Wartime Britain 1939-1945

Mike Brown, Carol Harris

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780752460499
• eBook ISBN: 9780752494722
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Residential Architecture
• Index: History

What was it like to live in Britain during the Second World War? What kind of house did the average family live in? How did people cope with the ever-present threat of air-raids, not to mention the hardship of food and clothes rationing? How was a typical suburban home built? What were the choices open to householders when it came to interior decoration and furnishing? How did the war affect the domestic routines of an average household?

The demands of a nation at war had many other far-reaching effects on the average home. How did women cope with bringing up a family single-handedly after their husbands were conscripted for military service? How did they use the rations and keep up their families spirits? What was it like to 'Make do and Mend' or 'Dig for Victory', or to sleep in an Anderson shelter? By looking at the lives of ordinary people who inhabited the semi-detached world of suburbia, Mike Brown and Carol Harris have painted a vivid picture of daily life on the Home Front in wartime Britain.

SIX

THE WARTIME KITCHEN

Many books and magazines gave advice to the new homeowners of the 1940s. Every part of the house was covered, but the kitchen drew more column inches than all the others. The quotes in this section are from several such publications and show how, while much advice was common sense and practical, other helpful hints ranged from the amusing to the downright baffling.

FURNITURE AND DECORATION

Stove/Aga

Coal or anthracite cooking ranges were supplied to houses of moderate size. Finished in enamel, they were always much in demand – ‘extras’ included a heat-resisting glass window and a side boiler for kitchen hot water. The August 1939 edition of Ideal Home magazine looked briefly at the problem of wartime cooking in an article on ‘Emergency Preparations’, and promoted the use of anthracite:

when it might be difficult to obtain solid fuel, and gas and electricity might be temporarily unavailable. Anyone who is thinking of taking advantage of summer coal prices and at the same time of laying in a larger stock of solid fuel against emergency should consider the claims of anthracite. . . . Anthracite sufficient to fuel an Esse Minor cooker burning continuously for a year can be stored in a cellar 4 ft square.

Gas or electric cookers were equally popular in homes as both forms of energy were routinely included in suburban housing developments by the time war broke out. Cookers made in the thirties have a smooth, mottled patterned, vitreous enamel finish. Electric cookers especially could be economical if they were fitted with a small boiler for hot water, and oil-powered cookers were also still popular. But overall, cookers were far less accurate as regards temperature control, less well insulated and far more wasteful in the way they used energy than today.

Cast-iron vitreous enamel ware, often white inside and brick coloured outside, was used routinely on electric or gas appliances. Aluminium ware, especially made with quarter-inch bottoms, was ideal for electric, especially when fitted with fully insulated and heat resistant Bakelite handles.

The following is a list of utensils recommended for the kitchen from a 1930s book of household management:

several mixing bowls – preferably china

set of basins kettles

1 cook’s knife

1 palette knife

1 vegetable knife

1 chopping knife

1 fruit knife

1 grater

1 egg whisk

several wooden spoons

several iron spoons

set of cake tins

several baking sheets

1 dozen patty tins

1 dozen bun tins

flour dredger

sugar dredger

pastry board

pastry brush

rolling pin

oven thermometer

set of pastry cutters

graduated measure, preferably glass

set of saucepans and fry pans

set of pie dishes

steamer

frying basket

fish kettle

fish slice

cook’s fork

receptacle for bread

2 sieves – 1 hair and 1 wire

tin opener

storage ware of assorted sizes

It further suggested a mincing machine, an omelette pan, stew pans or casseroles and assorted whisks and beaters. Optional extras would include a cream maker, a waffle iron, an egg poacher, a knife rack, potato, tomato and grapefruit knives, a butter curler and an egg timer.

Electrical Gadgets

Besides the traditional utensils, an increasingly wide range of electrical gadgets was available for the kitchen. The 1937 Slonetric catalogue included electric coffee percolators (£1 5s to £2 5s), electric porringers (17s to 23s 6d) and egg poachers (£1 to £1 2s), electric saucepans (£1 9s to £2 1s 6d), and toasters (19s 6d to £1 15s 6d). The latter still involved some work though as it only toasted one side at once, so the bread had to be watched and then turned over. A toaster did exist that was more like the modern versions, able to toast the bread on both sides at once and with an adjustable timer-switch that turned it off automatically. However, it was much more expensive: the two-slice model cost £13 10s and the four-slice £18 10s.

Another idea that lasted was the electric ‘mixing machines’, or food mixers as we would call them today. The ‘Kitchen-Kit’ (£5 15s) had a range of optional attachments (costing from 1s 6d to 22s 6d) including beverage mixer; flour sifter; buffer for polishing silverware (silver, or at least silver-plated cutlery was much more popular then); can opener; shredder and slicer; mincer; coffee grinder; ice cube breaker; knife grinder; pea sheller and bean slicer. The ‘Mixmaster’ (£6 6s) had several integrated features – such as the orange and lemon squeezer – as well as optional attachments like the potato peeler (£1 4s) and the freezer unit (£1 2s 6d) for making ice cream (you did, however, also need an ice-cream freezer). You could buy separate electric ice-cream makers which, like the traditional home ice-cream maker, had to be packed with ice and salt. However, whereas the traditional version required repeated and lengthy spells turning the handle (the responsibility of the kitchen staff), the electric model did it for you. Electric fridges of various sizes ranged in price from £23 2s to £81 18s, the former with a capacity of 2 ½ cubic feet, and the latter of 9 cubic feet. This also had ‘ice capacity 84 cubes, fitted door racks, vegetable bin, crisper [and] automatic lighting’.

‘A refrigerator is a necessity’ The Homeowners’ Handbook, 1938

Walls and Floors

Where possible, tiles completely covered the walls, but this could be expensive. The recommendation was that they be used at least round the sink and stove and, if possible, part way up all walls at least ‘to elbow height’, the remainder of the wall being painted with distemper or, better still, washable finishes such as oil, enamel or gloss paint. Imitation tiles were also available, one of the most effective being zinc sheets that were enamelled to look like tiles. Some washable papers were sold as suitable for kitchen use, but it was usually recommended that they be varnished after hanging. Pastel colours were fashionable; white, cream, apple green, pale grey and powder blue were particular favourites.

For the floor, buff or red quarry tiles were easy to clean but could be hard on the feet. Composition floors were the most popular, being ‘ideal for kitchens . . . warm, draught proof and considerably more resilient than tiles’. They could be laid in black, green, brown and red, and two colours were often used. Composition floors were recommended for the kitchen as they covered up scuff marks, as did marble-, jasper- or granite-patterned linoleum.

THE WARTIME KITCHEN CUPBOARD

It is tempting to believe that women in the thirties and during the war spent all their time bent over the cooker, conjuring up delicious homemade meals. But the labour-saving movement was as strong in the area of cooking as it was in cleaning. For those who could afford it, or whose busy schedules dictated – and there were ever more of those in the war – convenience foods were the answer.

Good cupboard accommodation is important in every labour saving kitchen. If fitted cupboards are carried up to the ceiling, dust cannot accumulate on the tops, and the upper part, which may be reached by the aid of a pair of steps, can be used for the storage of articles not often required. Where the general arrangement makes it satisfactory, it is possible to have the refrigerator built in as part of the cupboard space. A long cupboard for brooms, the vacuum cleaner, and other long-handled articles should be provided.

Most of us would probably be surprised at what we would find in the wartime larder: items like crispbread, baked beans and tinned spaghetti have more of a feel of the fifties, but they were all available during the war. Tinned convenience foods were always popular. These included Fray Bentos meats and Smedley’s peas. Throughout the war, Heinz continued to produce their 57 varieties. Favourites were oven-baked beans with pork and tomato sauce, baked beans, vegetable or tomato soup (they offered a wide range of soups, including asparagus, spinach, kidney and mock turtle), salad cream, and mayonnaise. The latter two were especially useful for adding flavour to an otherwise plain rationed meal; alternatives included HP, Daddies or OK sauce, Pan Yan pickles or Yorkshire relish. Treats might include Hartley’s jams; Senior’s fish and meat pastes; Weston’s or Huntley and Palmer’s Biscuits; Chiver’s jelly; Green’s or Bird’s custard; Carnation milk; and, for the family dog, Winalot or Spiller’s biscuits.

The main problem of food in the war was not the possibility of starvation – there was generally enough food – but boredom. The use of oatmeal, a domestic crop, was promoted by the Government, which subsidised its price. People were encouraged to use it instead of flour, and to add it to meat meals to bulk them out. The range of food available was often very limited, and staples like potatoes made up an increasing proportion of the food people ate. It was therefore important to add variety. For this reason, sauces and pickles were never rationed.

Certainly as the war went on and rationing and shortages intensified, some products became harder to find. Adverts acknowledged this, such as the Nescafé coffee promotion which said, ‘when you do get a chance to buy a tin’. Other supplies did dry up altogether as raw materials became impossible to get. Sometimes they just faded away, sometimes they were advertised as being no longer available until after the war. However, some managed to soldier on: beef cubes, such as Oxo or Brooke Bond, meat extract like Bovril, and gravy powders like Bisto remained and gave meals a meatier taste during meat rationing.

Nerve tonics were heavily advertised. For some, a good night’s sleep was enough, and this could be achieved more easily, people were told, with Horlicks, Bournvita, Ovaltine or Rowntree’s, Bournville or Fry’s cocoa – perhaps Guinness, Bulmer’s cider, or VP wine if something stronger was required!

With decreasing availability and increasing Government controls, branded breakfast cereals that were commonplace before the war – such as Shredded Wheat, Weetabix, Kellogg’s Wheat Flakes, Quaker wheat and Quaker rice – had to be replaced with exclusively home-grow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Conversion Tables
• Introduction
• One : The Suburban Dream
• Two : House Beautiful
• Three : Furniture and Furnishings
• Four : Housework and DIY
• Five : Rationing
• Six : The Wartime Kitchen
• Seven : 'If the Invader Comes'
• Eight : Fashion
• Nine : Entertainment
• Ten : Reconstruction
• Conclusion
• Bibliography