PROPAGANDA POSTERS PROVIDED FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The American version was "Loose lips sink ships"

A passenger train (left) allows a military train filled with cannons to go first

Conscientious objectors were allowed to join the ARP (Air Raid Precautions)

The Women's Land Army, in their green shirts and baggy pans, were at first laughed at.

Not for long. They did truly yeoman labour on farms, in fields, milking parlours, orchards, and forests. (See 'They Fought in the Fields,' an episode of Foyle's War, for an authentic look at their hardships and victories.)

The wealthy were also asked to do their part.

Part-time women war workers took jobs in munition and aircraft factories as assemblers and welders, acted as nurses' aids, made barrage balloons and fishing nets, and delivered milk door-to-door.

A skilled welder

Rosie the Riveters, British style, made this possible

And let's never forget Dad's Army.

Originally the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers), this group of men and boys considered too old or too young for active service helped greatly in keeping the morale of Britain up during the war. Many were WWI vets. When asked to participate, a quarter of a million signed up within the first twenty-four hours.

'...this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were'

The House with Nobody in it

The House with Nobody in it
by Joyce Kilmer

Photograph courtesy of Dok1 on Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=dok1&w=all)

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

Bygone Receipts (recipes)

Usquebaugh

This famous Irish cordial, which the French call Seubac, is prepared in various ways. In small quantities this liquor is prepared by housewives as follows: Infuse one pound of seedless raisins, half an ounce of grated nutmeg, one-forth of an ounce of pulverised cloves, as much of cardamom, the peel of a sour orange rubbed off on sugar, half a pound of brown rock-candy, and a little saffron tincture in two quarts of brandy a fortnight; stir daily; filter and bottle. (The Flowing Bowl by The 'Only William', 1892)

Sour Milk Griddle Cakes

Make a batter of a quart of sour milk and as much sifted flour as is needed to thicken so that it will run from the dish; add 2 well-beaten eggs, a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of melted butter, and a level teaspooonful of soda dissolved in a little milk or water, added last; then bake on a hot griddle, well greased; brown on both sides. Contributed by Mrs. D. F. Pryor, Luray, Missouri. (Pioneer Kitchen: A Frontier Cookbook by Ethel Reed)

Blanchard Farm Quince Pudding

Sift together 2 cups flour, 2 tsps. baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in 1 egg, beaten, 1 cup milk, and 2 tablespoons margarine, melted. Add 1 cup quince preserves and beat thoroughly. Turn out into well-buttered shallow baking dish or pie plate. Bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes. Cut into 6 pieces and serve with sweetened cream. (The Island Cookbook by Barbara Sherman Stetson)

Hickory Nut or Black Walnut Cake

Take 3 cupfuls of flour, sift with it 1 heaping teaspoonful of baking powder, and 1 tablespoonful of powdered mace; add 2 cupfuls of sugar, cream 1/2 cupful of butter with 3 eggs, add to all this 2/3 cupful of sweet milk; lastly adding a coffee-cupful of hickory or walnut meats. Line cake pans with well-buttered paper, and into this put a layer of cake mixture, then a layer of raisins upon that, then spread over this a layer of nut meats. Bake in a steady but not too hot an oven. Contributed by Mary M. Everhard, Saint Joseph, Michigan. (Pioneer Kitchen: A Frontier Cookbook by Ethel Reed)

Egg Cutlets

Put six eggs in a sauce pan, cover with cold water and simmer for an hour. Scald one pint of milk in a double boiler; rub together to a paste two tablespoonfuls of butter and four tablespoonfuls of flour; turn this into the scalded milk and stir slowly until it dissolves and thickens. Cover and cook for five minutes, then season with one teaspoonful of salt, one-half of a teaspoonful of paprika, a dash of cayenne, one teaspoonful of onion juice and a pinch of mace. Take from the fire, add the hard-boiled eggs chopped rather coarsely, and one tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Spread out on a buttered dish and set away until cold. Dust the hands lightly with flour and shape spoonfuls of the mixture in small cutlets, being careful to pat them out until of an even thickness; use as little flour as possible, or the creamy consistency will be lost. When all are shaped, dip each cutlet into slightly beaten egg, then in fine dried bread crumbs, and immerse in smoking-hot fat until golden brown. Drain on unglazed paper and serve with tomato or cream sauce. (The Settlement Cookbook 1903)

Honey Taffy

1 cup honey, 1 teaspoon butter; boil until it becomes brittle on being dropped into cold water; pour into a well-greased pan; pull when cooling. Contributed by Miss Belle Riley, Newton, Iowa. (My Favorite Receipt, 1895)

Apple Stuffing for Large Game Birds

3 cups bread crumbs
1 cup apple juice
3 cups peeled, cored, and diced apples
2 onions, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
6 slices of bacon, diced
6 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. parsley

Fry bacon and remove from skillet. With the exception of the bread crumbs, saute remaining ingredients int he bacon fat until the apples are almost tender. Add bacon and bread crumbs, mixing well and adding more crumbs if necessary. (The Great Southern Wild Game Cookbook by Sam Goolsby)

The link below will take you to one of the very best 'word' websites. Learn about the relationship and word origin of receipt/recipe here:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rec1.htm

Sleeping Underground

WWII Air Raid Shelter diorama

 

WWII Anderson Shelter diorama

Little nurses and soldiers partying underground

Backyard Anderson shelter

Claustrophobic, anyone?

Waiting out the war going on above

Prime Minister Churchill's underground bunker

An air raid shelter in a school

Many people were saved by air raid shelters. Some died in them. On the night of October 14, 1940, sixty-nine years ago to the day as I write this, a bomb fell on Balham Station, hitting a water main. Sixty-five people (and perhaps more) died either from the blast or from drowning.

When the sirens sounded, though, Londoners preferred the familiarity and perceived extra safety of the Underground tunnels over their own homes. They'd used the Underground all their lives to move quickly around greater London and now they used it to shelter from the frightful attacks going on outside.

Eight deep-level stations were dug during the war - but until 1944, when five of them were opened to the public, they were used exclusively by the Government. They are:

• Belsize Park tube station
• Camden Town tube station
• Goodge Street tube station
• Chancery Lane tube station
• Stockwell tube station
• Clapham North tube station
• Clapham Common tube station
• Clapham South tube station

What was it like to hunker down in a crowded tunnel alongside tracks that still carried trains day and night? Vivienne T wrote: "My dad was a small boy during WW2 and he remembers it being quite cosy; the kettle was brought down to the shelter and the radio and the family would sit and talk and drink tea, play card games, and so on. On one occasion his dad put him on the roof of the shelter while they were all going in, because he was running around getting in the way, and then forgot about him. Dad said he had a marvellous time watching all the planes and the gunfire and the bombs dropping (he was about 6 or 7) and never felt scared at all. It wasn't until his gran went to pass him his mug of tea they all realised he wasn't there and went to retrieve him.

My mum, who was two years younger...was actually bombed out when their roof took a direct hit; she, her mum and her sisters were unharmed because they were in a cellar-type shelter. Anderson shelters would not survive a direct hit. About the same time, my grandfather's sisters were wiped out by a direct hit to their house; the family had got fed up of sleeping out in the shelter and had gone back in the house. A terrible time."

Though times were grim, a lighthearted story is told about the Bank of England. They built an underground shelter for their employees and the A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions) team sent around a long health questionnaire to see if they could forestall any difficulties. One of the questions was: "Do you suffer from claustrophobia?" When 95% of the women answered yes, the team called in the chief of the women's division to ask if she had explained to the girls what claustrophobia meant. "Oh, yes," said she, "I told them it meant being afraid of confinement." Note: The joke only translates well if you know that the term 'confinement' means going through labor during a pregnancy.