In January 1940, the British government introduced food rationing. The scheme was designed to ensure fair shares for all at a time of national shortage.
The Ministry of Food was responsible for overseeing rationing. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods could be purchased. Basic foodstuffs such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon and cheese were directly rationed by an allowance of coupons. Housewives had to register with particular retailers. As shortages increased, long queues became commonplace.
A number of other items, such as tinned goods, dried fruit, cereals and biscuits, were rationed using a points system. The number of points allocated changed according to availability and consumer demand.
Priority allowances of milk and eggs were given to those most in need - children, expectant mothers or invalids.
Certain key commodities were also rationed; petrol in 1939, clothes in
June 1941 and soap in February 1942. The end of the war saw additional cuts. Even bread was rationed, though never rationed during the War.
One way to get rationed items without coupons, usually at greatly inflated prices, was on the ‘Black Market’ in which stolen or otherwise illegally obtained items of food could be had if one was in the know.
Shopkeepers sometimes kept special supplies 'behind the counter', and
'spivs' - petty criminals - traded in goods often obtained by dubious means. Most people regarded this as unpatriotic activity and would have nothing to do with it - remembering that men's lives were at risk in procuring many commodities, but by March 1941, 2,300 people had been prosecuted and severely penalised for fraud and dishonesty.
Many who had the space and opportunity kept rabbits and chickens, and they were able to convert their egg-ration into an allowance of meal for their chickens. Fish, and various meat items, were not on the ration at all. The latter included chickens, offal (liver, kidneys, tripe, lights, etc.), and game. Folk in country districts were better placed of course to obtain

wild rabbits, and game birds, and many town-folk reared rabbits for the table.
The Government encouraged people to grow as much as possible on allotments, and large areas of public parks were ploughed up to provide more. (Some large parks were actually farmed.) People supplanted the flowers in their gardens with potatoes and vegetables, but there was one disadvantage to this. Greengrocers, with limited supplies, would display notices such as Regular Customers Only or they would serve nonregular customers with one pound of potatoes only. This was hardly enough for a family of six, and Daphne recalls vividly that when her father's store of home-grown potatoes was exhausted, she and her sister would be given two bags and sent to tour all the local greengrocers. They would each queue at one shop and be given one pound, then they would walk round the corner, empty one bag into the other, and one would queue with the empty bag at the next shop, and so on until they had enough.
On May 24th 1945 my father wrote, Many of our pubs were shut in V
[Victory] week, but only because sold out - not that anybody got much drink, there is not much to be got anywhere and cigarettes are very short too. Many big tobacconists were closed all last weekend. Mum had to queue for some time to get one bot of beer for Whitsun. If you can find a pub with some beer you have to join in a scramble with many others to wait on somebody else's empty glass - as the shortage of glasses is worse than ever.
WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar