My mother, who has a rather witty way about her, gave me a thrilling birthday present this week – two books containing dozens of official second-world-war instruction leaflets. What a gift! The books are packed with all sorts of extraordinary information, going far beyond simple ration-cooking tips.
There is advice on essential skills such as darning, repairing pleats, combating moths and mending the “fork” in your knickers (don’t ask). As I write, the children are begging me to make them slippers out of old curtains and cardboard.
I feel the need to share these leaflets with a wider audience, as I sense they still have valuable lessons for us, 60 years on. How to cope if your house has been hit by a bomb, for example. The bracing “keep yer chin up” tone in Help Is Waiting for You might chime well with today’s reading public, who are becoming used to greeting each new morning with the realisation that £5,000 has dropped off the value of their house.
“Try to make plans now to go to live with friends and relations, living near, but not too near, in case your house is destroyed,” the leaflets urge. “Your friends and relations should also arrange now to come to see you if their house is knocked out.”
Well, clearly we should all be ready to band together now the banks are collapsing around us. And who knows where the worst of the price falls, negative equity and forced sales will be – Liverpool? Hull? Wimbledon?
In any case, wherever you are living, it will be with a touch of second-world-war austerity. What with soaring food and petrol prices, and mortgages going head over heels, it’s no wonder these leaflets seem so contemporary. They are not only compelling, but reassuring, too. We Brits have been here before, they seem to say. And if we got through the real bombs, we can survive the virtual ones.
The Battle for Fuel, published in the winter of 1942, is also a relevant read for our globally warmed era. Anyone who has seen Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and even those of us who haven’t, will recognise the urgency with which readers are inspired to save energy. The only difference is that Practical Hints for Saving Fuel at Home has none of the former US vice-president’s pomposity. Instead, it is written in a chatty, personable style.
“Limit yourself to one hot bath a week,” the leaflet advises. Not that you can exactly wallow in it – 5in of hot water is your lot. “Use a bowl and sponge on the other days.”
“Go easy with the poker,” it continues. “And give the words ‘combination grate’ [a contraption that provided an open fire, a hot-water boiler and an oven] a new meaning by combining with your neighbour to use one fire. What hardship is this compared to the Russian conditions?” Absolutely.
From huddling around the fire with your neighbour to dealing with oven flues, replacing the radiants in your gas fires and making DIY lagging from old corrugated paper, the personal expertise that readers were expected to unleash on their houses was an extraordinary example of green living – even though the term had yet to be coined.
Encouraging people to dampen down the fire with old tea leaves is probably pushing it these days, but such tips constituted an attempt to forge connections between macro and micro cost. Five pounds of coal saved, the leaflet informs us, would mean fuel to make 1,000 bullets – which puts into perspective the billions of pounds the Iraq war costs each month. And if one household gave up toast for a year, that would apparently fund another 2,000 bullets. Toast, it seems, is a dangerous “fuel thief”.
Now that nobody is moving, thanks to the credit crunch, the Make Do and Mend leaflet is particularly pertinent for those who are about to embark on a spot of refurbishing. “Odd jobs? Don’t send out for someone to attend to them until you have had a good try yourself.” Good advice, especially as said person now charges £70 an hour. The leaflet teaches readers how to reweb chairs, repair aluminium using a rivet and mend saucepans.
Practicality in the home, not Martha Stewart-style perfectionism, is the driving force here. The advice is still useful, readable and weirdly compelling. When repapering a stained or torn piece of wallpaper, for example, did you know that if you tear the replacement patch, rather than cut it neatly, the rough edges will make it look practically invisible? Or that you can tighten a loose hammer head (temporarily) by soaking it in water until the wood around the handle swells? And that you should never store a broom on its head?
I started off reading these leaflets with a supercilious sneer, but, while I don’t think I will ever be able to replace a broken table leg or reweb a chair, they do offer a route back into regaining some form of control over your house through learning how to do things that would otherwise necessitate a phone call, an appointment and a morning off with an expert. They help you realise how easy it is to change a fuse, read a gas meter, unblock a sink, patch a carpet or put new handles on your cupboards. And how not to panic should your house be blown to smithereens, because those around you will look after you and help you to get back on your feet.
Oh Carlos,in Basel-you have no idea. That's another discussion altogether, so-called universities and the degrees-for-all, no matter that you are basically illiterate. I work in one, sadly.
vj, london , uk
At school in the 1980s we were taught how to wire a plug. It now appears to be close to illegal to wire a plug yourself! You are supposed to get a qualified electrician to do it for you.
Graham Scrimgeour, Edinburgh, Scotland
vj - about to say exactly the same thing - do people really not know how to read a gas meter, unblock sinks or change a fuse? And I thought educational standards were improving in the UK... Oh I forgot, it's those soft qualifications that are all the rage... I guess media studies doesn't do it...
Carlos, Basel, CH
Sorry, you need to book an expert to read your gas meter,unblock your sink or change a fuse? Please tell me you're joking!
vj, london , uk
The Thrift Guide . . . to be followed, one hopes, by robins on snow-encrusted pillar boxes, gold top milk bottles left on your doorstep and Billy Cotton's Band Show. Wakey, Way-kayeeee!
Mike Armstrong, Macau, China
So are the times about to reprint these marvellous documents, I wait with baited breath as I unpick my hems, darn my socks and re-use my tea leaves.
Mary - Yorkshire
Mary, Yorkshire, UK
Toast, it seems, is a dangerous “fuel thief”.
only if you use an electric toaster
Use a long handled toasting fork and toast your
bread on a coal fire
John Cochrane, North Shields, UK
Milner, buy and read the local paper where you live. See if you prefer it. I enjoyed the article. You'd be suprised just how many are clueless when it comes to changing a fuse. unblocking a sink or reading a gas meter.
Jonny, London, UK
"The wartime thrift guide to survivng the credit crunch"
Sort it, Times.
Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan