Memories of rationed wartime meals wanted by Morpeth-based education provider

Chief executive and founder Christine Jamieson and her team are working on a project to join in the national VE Day 80th anniversary celebrations this May.

Rather than concentrating on fighting on the battlegrounds all over western Europe and the Far East, they plan to look at what was happening back in Britain – particularly in homes across the country as mothers and grandmothers struggled every day to feed their families on the meagre rations available to them.

Christine said: “We want the young people we work with as well as schools around Morpeth to think about life on the home front by bringing together the generations to produce a series of wartime recipe postcards, which will be used by local schoolchildren to take part in our ‘Write Home for VE 80th’ literacy sub-project.”

Older generations will remember that what would have been considered basic foodstuff pre-war such as meat, ham, bacon, sugar, butter and cheese were all rationed from 1940 onwards as supplies from abroad were cut off from reaching Britain by the German navy in an attempt to starve the nation into submission.

Instead, at dinner tables around the country they were being replaced by wartime recipes such as cabbage soup, parsnip pudding, spam hash, vegetable stews, potato rarebit, carrot biscuits, vinegar and potato cakes and split pea soup.

At the time, families were encouraged through the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign to grow their own vegetables as well as keeping hens and ducks in their back gardens. Many people also foraged fruits such as brambles, rosehips, elderberries, crab apples and bilberries from hedgerows and woodlands along with mushrooms from the fields.

“What we hope to do is to establish a list of the most popular wartime recipes in our area during rationing so that we can include them in a series of postcards which children and young people can take home with them to help share the memories of older generations of their families,” said Christine.

“Our older children will also be involved in the design of the postcards.”

Maximize Education Alternative Provision has also produced a limited range of Red, White and Blue Jar Candles to commemorate the efforts of the home front, which are available for distribution on request from ‘Shine a Light for the Homefront’.

To help gather their wartime recipe memories, Christine and her team have designed a questionnaire that they are distributing around Morpeth – and is also available by contacting Maximize Education through its website www.maximizeeducation.com – which asks if anyone, or older members of their family, can remember a list of wartime meals.

Anyone returning a questionnaire will in turn receive a commemorative certificate of grateful recognition.

Anyone looking to take part in the Homefront project or ‘Shine a Light for the Homefront’ can give Christine a call on 079834 25115.