Wartime rationing has prepared me for coping during the coronavirus lockdown

AWEEK before the nation was plunged into lockdown, pensioner Maureen Stone was already seven days into hers.

With the cancellation of all the clubs and events she attends in her North Yorkshire village, Maureen was forced to stay at home.

“This is my third week now but it’s fine as I am used to being alone,” says Maureen, 83, whose husband, Peter, died when their two children, Judith and Robert, were young.

“My husband had a stroke one afternoon and he never recovered. He was 45. It was a difficult time and money was tight.

“I met Peter at a dance at the Scala Ballroom in Leeds when I was 17. He had just finished national service.We got engaged two years later and married when I was 21.”

Maureen considers herself to have had a fortunate, happy life: “I was three when war broke out. I can’t remember that we were afraid even when we went down into the air raid shelter. My mum was a very strong woman, like (Charles Dickens’) Mrs Micawber. We didn’t have a lot of money but something always turned up.”

Lifelong Express reader Maureen has drawn on that wartime spirit during lockdown.

“Why on earth were people panic buying? As a child during the war, on rationing, we didn’t eat an awful lot because the food wasn’t there. So I just decided I would do with less.After all I wanted to lose a bit of weight and be healthier so that’s what I did.”

In normal times, Maureen is taken to the supermarket every Friday on a bus service run by Age UK Selby District which relies on donations and volunteers to keep going.

During lockdown, Maureen’s village has come together to help those self-isolating.

“If I need shopping or a prescription, one of the villagers gets it for me,” she says. “They leave the goods outside and I hand them the money on a long tray.”

Much as she does in normal times, as a member of the local choir, over-60s club and WI, Maureen has kept herself busy.

“I am clearing out drawers and cupboards and playing my big collection of CDs,” she says. “I love musicals, Les Mis is my favourite – I have seen it 17 times. I started singing in the school choir when I was 12, then I was with the Leeds Girls’ Choir until I was 21, and I am still singing now. Singing is good for the breathing and the brain.”

Maureen was a secretary and had to work full time when her husband died. She says: “In 1975 when he had his stroke people weren’t so aware of what to do. I think he would have survived if it happened now.”

Maureen’s son is an electronics engineer and is married with two children. Her daughter works in insurance. Both live locally: “I can’t see the family but my grandchildren phone me which is lovely.” Maureen was the youngest of five girls. “I think I was a mistake. My eldest sister, Doris, was 16 when I was born and she was disgusted,” says Maureen laughing. “My parents were both over

40 – old in those days.”

She recalls a happy childhood in their house in a south Leeds suburb. “My father was a wonderful gardener.There were raspberries and loganberries and in the greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers. In the beds were peas, potatoes and onions and then later chrysanthemums, and a lawn filled with rose beds.

“If I close my eyes I can still smell the green tomatoes and the freshly boiled beetroot which my father made in an old pan. My mother made sandwiches of Cheshire cheese and beetroot. My father was a steam engine driver so he wasn’t sent away to war.We were lucky.”

Maureen has been reading the Daily Express since she got her first job as a typist in Leeds in 1953: “I used to get the Daily Express, and take my sandwiches and sit on a bench. I have read it ever since.

“I am a very positive person. My motto for life has always been: obstacles are just another name for opportunities.

“I have a ring binder full of sayings I have collected over the years because I like writing cards and letters and I include them.”

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