War carrots

My mother had already celebrated her 10th birthday by the time sugar came off the ration in 1953. Bruised, battered and nearly bankrupted by two World Wars in quick succession, Britain’s wounds were by then slowly starting to heal (in thanks partly to the Marshall Aid Plan from the USA).

But my ten year old mother was appropriately childishly oblivious to this. All that mattered was that the lids to the magical jars of toffees, bon bons, liquorice allsorts, dolly mixtures, aniseed balls and barley sugars were hurled to the four winds and that their contents could pour forth, unceasing and cornucopia like, to be crunched, munched and chewed as long as there were hours in the day.

A few years earlier, Pathe news reels had captured the scenes of celebration outside Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square on VE Day. Tens of thousands of exhausted soldiers, airmen, marines, submariners and sailors thronged the streets and threw their arms around each other and the glamorously coiffed women in smart shift dresses that had joined the party. And now, eight years on, the streets throbbed to the sounds of hundreds of pairs of tiny feet stampeding to their local grocery shop, captivated by this early 1950s sugar rush.

My mother waited as patiently as impatience would allow in the queue in the sweet shop, holding her own mother’s hand and eyeing up the rows of jars on the shelf. It seemed as if each transaction took an eternity, and she fidgeted and squirmed as one by one children slipped past proudly bearing paper bags full of delights. Entire civilisations had been born and faded into oblivion in the time it took to be her turn, or so it seemed. When the moment came, voice squeezed to a reed by excitement, my mother made her request. Flying saucers, gob stoppers, midget gems, pink sugar mice, sherbet and lemon drops tipped onto the scales and were scooped into tiny paper bags, each swung expertly between the nimble fingers of the shopkeeper to ensure not one drop of sweetness fell to the floor.

Giddy with delight and salivating with anticipation, my mother turned and walked to the door of the shop grasping the treasure to her heart. “Wait a minute" called the shopkeeper to my mother’s retreating back, "you haven’t paid yet". The shopkeeper winked at my grandmother, sharing a conspiratorial adult smile above the head of my mother, now struck dumb and gaping in shock. For all of her ten years, the little girl had watched her mother as she exchanged ration coupons for meat, sugar, eggs; that she still had to pay for her goodies now that the sweet ration was as dead as the Wicked Witch of the West had never crossed her mind.

A couple of nights ago, I was urgently hungry and in need of convenience food. I put a shop-made shepherd’s pie in the oven and found two small tins of carrots in the cupboard to go with it. But a can opener was nowhere to be seen so I opened the tins with a sharp kitchen knife. I laughed out loud to myself and the dog as I did this, and sent my sister a text message to reassure her that no blood had been spilled. “Tinned carrots?” my sister replied a little later, “there’s not a war on you know!”

Like the distinctive taste of coffee from a Thermos flask or how a curry tastes so much better the day after it’s been made, I like tinned carrots. They’re not the same as fresh ones – which I love too – but they have a strange texture all their own and a wonderful bright orange colour that I think nature never intended.

Bananas followed sugar off the ration in 1954. Britain finished repaying the USA for the Marshall Aid plan a few years ago. My mother still loves sweeties. And I think she still likes tinned carrots too.


Tin of carrots opened with a knife. I've now bought a can opener.