luntary Service, which looked after casualties, or worked as firewatchers to put out incendiary bombs. In 1944 and 1945 Britain was attacked from the air once again. At the time the government would only allow stories to be published in newspapers, which said how well the British people were coping. "Britain can take it" was one slogan. This was an example of propaganda. In fact there are many examples of people being very near to total despair in the winter of 1941. The Blitz had much more devastating effects than the government was prepared to admit: “In October 1940 Balham underground station was hit by a bomb that burst a water main. Sixty-four people drowned. This story was never released until after the war, because many people sheltered from air raids in underground stations. If they had found out what had happened there might well have been panic” (Talcott, pg 46). Rationing was introduced in January 1940 and was gradually extended during the war. Food was the main item, but petrol, clothing and furniture were also rationed. Rationing had two aims: 1.To make the supplies of food go as far as possible. This was very important because Britain was not producing enough food to feed the population in 1939. 2.To make sure that the people who needed food really got it. A council was set up to work out how much nutrition different people needed. Children and pregnant mothers received more. The foods that were rationed were meat, fats, cheese, butter, eggs and sweets. Bread, potatoes and vegetables were never rationed. Milk was rationed, but at a high level. Rationing led to an improvement in people's health as they could not eat fatty foods and had to eat more vegetables, potatoes and bread. However, most people found it boring and it had a serious effect on morale. Often it was the housewife who had to try to find ways of coming up with new ways of cooking the same limited range of foods. Many children were evacuated from c...
