Cost of feeding Depression family

An old shopping list has revealed the cost of feeding a family of 11 when the UK was in the grip of the recession of the 1930s - less than £1 a week.

Ann Read, 92, discovered her mother's list in a battered notebook while clearing out her home in Instow, Devon.

Emily Bonwick's 1937 list showed a tin of corned beef was sixpence (2.5p) and candles for twopence (1p).

Despite the recession, the family never went without. "We always had a full table," Mrs Read said.

"Mother's first job would be to light the stove so breakfast was ready for us when we all got up," she told BBC News.

"I hated Mondays though - that was washing day, so instead of waking up to the smell of breakfast, we'd wake up with the smell of soap suds.

"Dinner on Mondays would be cold meat and bubble and squeak from Sunday's leftovers."

'Never stopped'

Mrs Read, who was the second youngest in the family, said she was taught how to cook and skin rabbits by her mother.

• SHOPPING LIST ITEMS
• 1lb tea - 2s (shillings) (10p)
• 12 eggs - 1s 9d (9p)
• 2lb tomatoes - 1s 4p (7p)
• Dolly blue - 1d (0.5p)
• Custard powder - 5d (2p)
• 20 cigarettes - 6d - (2.5p)

"With so many of us to feed and look after, she never seemed to stop," Mrs Read said.

"When I saw how much Mum had to do, I tried to help out but I know I didn't do enough."

"I know there was a recession, but everything seemed quite normal - mainly thanks to Mum. We even had some treats like steak and kidney pudding.

"We grew most of our own vegetables and nothing was wasted.

"I still don't like throwing food away - and I still make a good steak and kidney pudding."

Mrs Read said her mother ran the household "like clockwork" and was thrifty with clothes too, having one new dress made for each of her four daughters for Easter Sunday.

"Dad would sit there and let Mum do all the work - that was the done thing, but I swore it wouldn't happen to me," she said.

Mrs Read and her husband David moved to Instow in 1983 to be near their son and daughter who both worked in Devon.

Mrs Bonwick's shopping lists were written for Nash's grocery store in Whiteleaf, near Caterham in Surrey, where the family lived when Ann was growing up.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
BBC Bitesize: 1930s Depression
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites