NextBack"The queues were not too bad for the butchers and the grocers but you had to queue for the luxuries. If you wanted doughnuts or cake or fancy bread you had a long wait. There were two sisters, the Misses Barrett, who kept a pastry shop in Alcester Street and there was always a queue there. Sometimes the word would go round that one of the shops had got some biscuits or something and then you would get in the queue and hope that you would be lucky and they wouldn't run out before you got to the front.
Clothing was rationed and keeping up appearances became a battle of wits.. Before the war if you worked in the offices you were not considered 'dressed' unless you wore a hat and gloves. When I was young the 'halo' type of hat was fashionable, you may remember photographs of the Queen Mother in one which she wore flat on the one side. Curls were fashionable and we spent hours carefully curling our hair. The gents wore plus fours to play golf and you had cycle clips, nobody wore shorts in those days. When the war came, we wore turbans instead of hats, skirts became shorter to save material and we put gravy browning on our legs. The bane of our lives were clothing coupons and we used to try and buy them on the black market -
