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CONTENTS
Foreword 4
What Mothers Can Do . . . 13
How to Darn Holes and Tears 17
Here are your Battle Orders 21
How to Look After Rayon 25
How to Patch An Overall 27
Your Household Linen . . . 31
Simple Household Repairs 35
How to Patch Elbows and Trousers 39
After The Raid 43
Every Woman Her Own Clothes Doctor 49
’Ware Moth 53
Keep Them Tidy Underneath 55
How to Use Large Coke . . . 59
A Guide to Woolies 61
Save Fuel for Battle 65
Clothing Coupon Quiz 69
Deft Darns 93
Save Fuel All Along the Line 97
The ABC of Making Buttonholes 101
Getting Ready for Baby 103
How to Patch Sheets and Blankets 107
How to Reinforce for Extra Wear 111
Look After Your Woollens 115
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Save Fuel – Food and Fuel Planning 119

Easy to Make Slippers . . . 121
How to Patch a Shirt 125
How to Look After Parachute Nylon 129
Smarten Up Your Men! 131
Never Send a Hole to the Wash 135
Patches 137
Hints on Renovating and Recutting 141
Darning Do’s and Don’ts 145
Fuel Sense Saves Money in the Home 147
Heat Plays Havoc With Shoe Leather 159

4
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FOREWORD
Food rationing is probably the first thing that comes to mind
when the privations of the Second World War are mentioned, but
many other taken-for-granted items of daily life were also rationed
or in short supply. Recycling, more popular in today’s ‘green’
society than at any time since the years of wartime austerity, was
the order of the day in the forties, with paper, old pots and pans
and all manner of scrap salvaged to help the war effort.
Fuel to heat your home or for your car or motorcycle was
strictly rationed. Coal was needed for industries manufacturing
for the war effort, and keeping the military mobile required vast
amounts of fuel which became a precious resource as U-boat
activity decimated supplies. Petrol was rationed from the
beginning of the war in September 1939. Small allowances were
granted for private cars and motorcycles; ration books giving the
registration number of the vehicle had to be produced at garages.
Even these meagre allowances were stopped altogether in 1942,
and only people who were ‘essential’ car users continued to
receive ration coupons. In those days far fewer people drove cars,
so the lack of petrol affected a relatively small percentage of the
population.
The rationing of fuel for the home, with most houses heated
by coal fires, had a far more direct effect
on the vast majority of ordinary people.
Saving fuel was vital to the war effort.
Power stations needed coal to supply
electricity to factories; many factories
themselves needed coal or oil to run
their machinery and the whole rail
network would have ground to a halt
without coal for the steam trains.
Domestic fuel was allocated
according to the size of the house and
the region where it was located, while
everyone was also allocated a personal
allowance.The year from July 1942 to
June 1943 was called the year of the
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‘Battle for Fuel’ by the Ministry of Fuel and Power. People were
asked to be especially careful in their fuel use, to use large
anthracite or coke in boilers and fires, and were shown how to
make briquettes of coal dust and sawdust or cement, so that none
of the ration was wasted.The need to use fuel sparingly went on
throughout the war and beyond, with everyone encouraged to
support Britain’s economic recovery by saving power that was
needed by our industries.
During the war it was essential to maintain a high output of
coal, and in 1941 the government decided that the men
compulsorily bound to work in the coalmines should have the
same welfare facilities as factory workers. Canteens were
provided at the pithead, serving snacks during the shifts and a
proper meal at the end. For a brief period there was even an
experiment in feeding miners underground because it was argued
that a full meal in the middle of the shift gave a higher output than
a similar meal taken at the end. However, it was too hot and dusty
to eat underground, and the idea was abandoned in favour of the
pithead canteen.
Having dripping taps mended, washing up in a bowl rather than
the sink, taking shallow baths and lagging the hot water tank were
some of the ways to economize on fuel suggested in guidelines
from the government. Food writers and writers of ‘Ministry’
leaflets dealt comprehensively with conserving fuel in the kitchen.
Mrs Arthur Webb,1 cookery writer on
Farmer’s Weekly, advocated using a
pressure cooker or a three-tiered
steamer to provide a whole meal;
vegetables, meat, puddings, and even a
cake could be cooked in a steamer.
The cake had to be covered in a
double thickness of greaseproof
paper, tied securely, and steamed for
one hour per pound of mixture. To
brown the cake a spoonful of sugar
mixed with a little milk was brushed
over the top and it was put in the
oven briefly, or it could be covered
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