The home front

From factories to dancehalls, clothing coupons to food queues, author and journalist Drusilla Beyfus recalls life for those the soldiers left behind in 1944

Journalist and author Drusilla Beyfus on life in Britain during the war, from coupon books to the everyday threat of bombs

As a 17-year-old in 1944, I had just left finishing school and was working as a cub reporter on the Reading Mercury and the Berkshire Chronicle. I wrote the women’s columns for both papers – one was the Berkshire Woman’s Diary. I had no specific training for this role. The background was that conscription had taken all the able-bodied trained people into the national services, so there was hardly anyone left on staff, which is why I got the job.

Cub reporters didn’t make much money. I think I earned about 30 shillings a week, paid in cash in a little brown envelope. My parents didn’t give me an allowance. They took the view that they had spent a lot on my education and now it was up to me to make my own way.

London was blitzed and Reading was not, though there was always a threat – you never knew. The bombs were just a general background to life. I sometimes went to stay with my father who had a cottage in Sussex, providentially called Sanctuary Cottage, near Pulborough.

My parents had separated when I was 11 (and I went to boarding school) and my mother, sister and I moved from a swish house in Belgravia to a flat in Twickenham. Then it was bombed during the Blitz, and we left London to live in a house in Henley overlooking the river, where the owner took in paying guests. So I spent a lot of time on the Thames. We had a punt, which we bought for about two shillings and restored. The shortage of petrol meant there were no pleasure boats on the river and it was wonderfully clear for swimming.

In 1944, life was a queue. Bread, eggs – there was almost nothing we didn’t queue for. The main problem was the tremendous shortage of supplies. The government made a big attempt to popularise food that was absolutely disgusting. One example was snoek – a canned fish that tasted unthinkable. Spam was caviar compared with snoek.

Women were told briskly that it was our duty to be good-looking, to keep our standards up. In 1941, we could still get beauty products, but by 1944 it was difficult to come by any at all. American soldiers had access to all kinds of things that British girls did not, such as nylon stockings, lipstick and cigarettes. The choice of

lipstick colours was limited and we didn’t have nail varnish until after the war. I had one lipstick in bright magenta.

It was fashionable to have long hair, but short hair was the norm for the women who worked in factories. Long hair was impractical, because it could get caught in machines. So all kinds of styles were devised – pinned up and rolled at the back, that sort of thing. Also, if you were in the services, your hair had to fit comfortably under your cap.

Everyone was issued with a book of clothes coupons and there was a great deal of wheelerdealing in couponry. There was very little stock. Even if you were good at mending, there was a shortage of all sewing materials, and elastic and buttons were hard to get.

I had one nice dress. I used to borrow clothes, especially if I was going for job interviews – friends would provide a handbag or a hat or shoes. I only had my school uniform – my nice dress and a tweed jacket and skirt. But I had a friend who was much better placed in life and would lend me clothes. In 1944, fashion writers advised: ‘You just have to make do with what you’ve got. Stick with it until times are better – which they will be.’

It’s true to say that women’s energies were made the most of – the war certainly got a lot out of us. There was a terrific emphasis on keeping fit for the war effort. The whole of your life was supposed to be dedicated to winning this war. It was all about keeping your end up and also staying healthy – because of the shortage of medicine, apart from anything else. During the 1930s, Mary Bagot Stack had started her Women’s League of Health and Beauty, so the British had become much more conscious of the importance of the relationship between keeping fit and looking good.

When I was in Henley, we would go to the Catherine Wheel Hotel on Saturday nights and dance the conga to all those wonderful American songs. I had terrific fun. It’s ironic that while a bloodthirsty war was going on, there was I, dancing the conga with my friends.

I had digs at 41 Field Road with a family called Blake. They fed me a hot meal every night and I shared a bedroom with Our Beryl, as she was known. She had left school with no qualifications and was working in a sausage factory – but she was earning money. Her brother was a rear gunner in the RAF and he’d shot down a record number of German planes.

The Blakes were wonderful people. Mr Blake worked in the local brewery and kept his trousers up with a big thick leather belt. And Mr Blake had never seen Mrs Blake in the nude. They had a wonderful marriage, and they loved their children.

There was no bathroom at Field Road. There

Women were told briskly that it was our duty to be good-looking, to keep our standards up

was an outside loo, which was guarded by Rover, the house canine. He would nip your ankles as you went in – it was part of his fiefdom.

We washed ourselves and our smalls at the kitchen sink. The other women rinsed their sanitary towels by hand and I was looked upon as being very extravagant for using disposable pads. I bought them at a chemist, but they were not easy to dispose of. I remember Mrs Blake saying: ‘Mr Blake has never seen anything, Drusilla, and I don’t want him to now.’

I was lucky because it was difficult to find a billet – lots of American servicemen were stationed in Reading. All the girls were keen on the American soldiers. They added a great deal of interest to the local hops and dances. They also had access to food and luxuries, and were very generous. There were many relationships. Men in general would try to get you to go to bed with them by offering a pair of cami-knickers, which were very fashionable.

It’s so difficult to recreate in words what it was like to live during that time. I know that all our lives are uncertain, but this was enormous uncertainty. Where is it all going to end? And when? It was the suspense.

But the morale in the country was extraordinary. It was very high – underneath the uncertainty there was an inner conviction that we were going to win. This was attributable, I think, to Churchill, his speeches, and the British character. We were a rather self-confident nation then.

We lived with enormous uncertainty. Where is it all going to end? And when?

Women firefighters keeping fit on the roof of their headquarters in Walthamstow, London, in 1944

WOMEN’S WORK A poster recruiting women into jobs producing munitions and parts for ships and planes, circa 1940

SMALL LUXURIES Models wearing nylon stockings at a fashion display at the Waldorf hotel in London, February 1944

FRIENDS AND ALLIES American soldiers take tea in the home of Mrs AD Weller in Winchester, Hampshire

ROLL UP A new hairstyle that can be comfortably worn under a cap by women in the services is demonstrated in London

DIG FOR VICTORY Picking tomatoes in a greenhouse in Essex – the war spurred a huge nationwide campaign for growing food

SAFE PASSAGE In the baggage car of a train from London, members of the Women’s Voluntary Service give milk to child evacuees

UP IN SMOKE Daily Express columnist Drusilla Beyfus (below left) sets light to a clothing ration book in March 1949