Part 04: Rationing

zoom

Tony Simmonds aged 10 years

From the private collection of Tony Simmonds

I was always annoyed during the War because we had a sweet ration you see. You could only get 2 ounces of sweets. You’d go down to the sweet shop and they’d measure it out; two ounces in a little tiny bag -that was your lot for the week.

Walpole Road leads down in to College Place and there was a Mrs Vince who kept the local sweet shop. She had these big jars, they didn’t all come in packets they came in big jars, and you had paper bags, either brown or white paper bags. She’d pour the sweets out on to scales “That’s your two ounces” you know and put them in the bag and that was it.

I used to keep my sweets in a tin up on the top of the cupboard because I knew they had to last a week. I’d only take one at a time every so often [but] my Dad used to go and pinch them! I caught him once and I thought that was terrible you know pinching his son’s sweets. H had a very sweet tooth!

Tony Simmonds was interviewed for the My Brighton and Hove website by Zoe Woods.