What was it like on the home front in England during the Second World War? Well, for a start, they suffered very severe rationing. Also, everyone had to practice using a gas mask. This could lead to farcical results, as this story by a governess of a high society family illustrates:
Food grew scarce. Now we all looked forward greedily to our Sunday morning egg, the only one we got. We had it fried until fat became scarce.
Ration books and gas masks we all had for some time. It was difficult to fit the little girls [aged 14 and 10 respectively!] properly. After several abortive efforts they were issued Mickey Mouse masks, horrible affairs with red-and-blue noses that never failed to put us in mind of the mandrill at the zoo.
We had to put on these contraptions every day and wear them for ten minutes to get used to them. Thus was a grim and at first rather frightening business, for a gas mask, until you get used to it, gives gives a nice imitation of slow suffocation.
We made a game of it, wore them out-of-doors, and played, in the woods, at being prehistoric monsters, which I am sure we closely resembled. When the children got over their first qualms it all became funny and we laughed a lot, which resulted in some very curious noises emerging. Gas masks are not intended for laughing in.
One day as we were doing our daily ten minutes we saw a mysterious figure skulking from tree to tree in a most suspicious manner, obviously trying to get away without being seem
A spy! we thought. Forgetting we still wore our gas masks, we followed him through the woods, but presently lost him. Our last view of him was running wildly through the thicket.
We hurried back to the castle. The warning was sounded and the police turned out. Presently a terrified plumber boy was rounded up. He had liked the look of us all in our gas masks much less than we liked the look of him.
The mind boggles at the thought of the poor boy fleeing these strange looking creatures. And who were the "little girls"? Well, the older one has been our Queen now for almost 67 years, because they were the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and the chase took place in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
Reference: Marion Crawford (1950), The Little Princesses, Harcourt, Brace & Co., pp 187-8 ("Crawfie" as she was known, was the princesses' governess ie tutor, for 17 years.)
What an excellent story. It reminded me of something I just read on the internet, of a Syrian woman who made gas masks for her children out of paper cups, plastic, and I forget what all, from a recipe she found on YouTube. It's a sad world, when children need to wear gas masks.
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