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G4EBT > CODGER 18.01.08 21:31l 119 Lines 4868 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : C37662G4EBT
Read: GUEST
Subj: 1940s-50s sweet rationing
Path: DB0FHN<DB0MRW<DK0WUE<7M3TJZ<ON0AR<GB7YKS<GB7SYP<GB7FCR
Sent: 080118/1854Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:58690 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:C37662G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : CODGER@WW
The rationing of sweets and chocolate in the UK began on 26 July 1942.
I never really remember having sweets or chocolate much as a child, but
we seemed to have a never-ending supply of liquorice root to chew on!
Occasionally we had food parcel gifts handed out at school from Canada,
which sometimes included boiled sweets or "kali powder" - a sherbet which
"exploded" on your tongue and foamed up in your mouth.
I guess if it's still around it's classed as "WMD"!
The Canadian gift parcels also often with packs of sweet cocoa powder.
Too good to waste in hot chocolate drink - much nicer to lick your finger,
dip it in the powder and savour the flavour, repeating the process over
and over till the packet was empty.
It went much further that way!
Sweet shops in the 1940s and 50s sometimes sold rather nice cough sweets,
optimistically called "lung healers". I'm not sure that term would comply
with the Trades Description Act nowadays.
Rather like the adverts which extolled the virtues of smoking "Craven A"
cigarettes - "Good for your throat". They weren't good for my mum - they
helped put her in an early grave, aged 41.
The process of de-rationing began in 1948, but made slow progress until
1953. Then Food Minister Gwilym Lloyd-George made it a priority for his
department.
The first attempt to de-ration sweets was in April 1949, when demand far
outstripped supply and they were put back on ration after just four
months.
Lloyd-George de-rationed sugar in September 1953, even though sugar
production was still only a little above half of what it had been in
pre-war years.
De-rationing of sweets in 1953 was partly as a result of pressure from
sweet manufacturers and had a dramatic effect on the confectionery market.
Spending on sweets and chocolate jumped by about œ100m in the first year
to œ250m - a year which - according to the confectionery industry, was "as
dynamic as any in the industry's history".
Consumers in the UK now spend in excess of œ5.5bn on confectionery each
year.
Rationing finally ended when meat was taken off the ration in July 1954.
One of the consequences of sugar being plentiful from the mid 1950s
onwards has been an increase in tooth decay, compounded by a lack of
dentists.
For example, according to the Scottish Health Education Board a child in a
deprived area now eats an unbelievable '60 teaspoons', or 300g of sugar,
every day.
The intake is even higher if you add in all the hidden sugars, according
to research carried out by the nutritionist Maisie Steven for her book The
Good Scots Diet.
She calculates the average active schoolchild's intake at 425g - of which
sweets make up just 90g, and drinks 125g. This is remarkable enough - but
Smith says that's four times the sugar intake of Scots children in 1939,
and nearly double what it was in 1982.
Some drinks - Ribena for example, have as much as 34.56g, or seven
teaspoons of sugar, in the modern 288ml carton. Ribena's parent company,
Glaxo Smith Kline, also sells 600 million tubes of toothpaste a year,
so it wins both ways!
Scottish kids consume more fizzy drinks than anyone else in Europe and
have the worst teeth in Britain - with an average 'd3mft' count (that's
the average number of decayed, missing or filled teeth) of 2.36
at five years old, rising to over three in Glasgow.
In England generally the d3mft figure is 1.47, and less than 1.0 in places
like Surrey and Sussex. Almost half of all Scottish five year olds suffer
from tooth decay, and according to the World Health Organisation an
average 12-year-old Glaswegian has teeth similar to those of a 12-year-old
in Kazakhstan or Cambodia.
Of all the parts of the National Health Service in the UK which is
lacking, it's dentistry - many dentists only take patients on a private
basis. All the dentists in my village are private, and not only that,
they're not taking any new patients they're so busy.
A recent survey indicated that one-in-three people in England and Wales
haven't seen a dentist in two years because they can't find one that will
accept them as either a private patient or NHS.
Had sufficient dentists been available, an estimated 4.7 million
people would have sought private care and a further 2.7 million
would have sought NHS care.
As children, we had to attend school dental clinics which struck fear into
my heart. Belt driven drills, and nitrous-oxide gas for an anaesthetic.
The stuff of nightmares.
Some kids got scurvy from a poor diet and at the school clinic had the
sores on their skin covered with gentian violet - brightly coloured
medication. They were teased mercilessly, shunned and called "lepers".
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 17:54 on 2008-Jan-18
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