31 November 2023

Food in World War 1

See, want a threepenn’orth of giblets or fish, and they give you all the pieces of fish for a couple of coppers that time, to feed all the family. I’ve see one firm used to sell only English meat. No frozen meat. They were shipping butchers. And we used to buy a rump bone off ‘em after they’d cut the steaks off and for the hotels and restaurants. And they used to charge you threepence. It was like a three cornered bone, like what they call the whole leg, hopping feet, and there’s be enough meat and suet fat on there to make a beef steak pudding for the whole family for threepence, English meat. Would be all right today, wouldn’t it. Feed a family of about eight for threepence. And then when the bone was chopped up and boiled they had soup a whole basin of soup out of it Mum’d make ‘em.

Mum was learnt, wasn’t she. It comes to you, see. Circumstances make you an expert at things, you see, it was the same as me. I learnt to fiddle as I call it, and go along life like that. You see when I got on I had a lot of friends, boys worked in Billingsgate Market, had a few boxer friends, see, and use to go there and they used to bring home that time -samples from them you see what they give me. And then if I took any repairs from ‘em I’d go down there and take ‘em their footwear and they’d send me back a box of kippers or something like that to take home, or a box of roe. Don’t get those things now. Come in handy they would.

Yeh, if I still wanted to I could still go and find friends there. Oh yes, I was a respected boy. Yeh, they got one friend of mine, he’s managing the car park there now, he was a good boxer was George. George Reeves, he fought most of the best middleweights and welterweights here and I used to spar with him a lot see, and we were great friends. Well, what they call a wheel within a wheel, you help one another. I done a trick there one holiday Monday, I went there, in the war. And I think I took ‘em a couple of pairs of shoes, or boots what I’d mended for ‘em, and there was my friend.

He worked for a firm, only had one box of fish come up. And I said to him ‘Is that all the fish that’s come up today Ted?’ He says yes. Well in this box of fish was two big cod and in the middle a small cod. I suppose the small one weighed about six to eight pound But the two big ones filled this here box up. So an old Jewish man came up and he says to me: “Do you think they’ll sell that fish?” I said, “You won’t buy that.” “He says why not?” “I says you wouldn’t pay five pound for that box of fish would you?” “Why not?” he says. So I says “I’ll speak to the friend of mine for you.” So I went and told this to Teddy. His name was Allen. I said, “Ted, there’s this old boy there, he’s willing to give a fiver for them couple of fish. Don’t want the little one. He says that’s for me.” So, he says “Right, good.” See, so he paid this money for them two fish, and he paid the porterage, they had a shilling or so porterage. And he had two big long bags, like net baskets as they call ‘em, you’ve seen the little next baskets what they make plaited and he had two long ones, he had one cod in each and he had a taxi waiting out the back to take ‘em away.

And I spoke to him. I said “how do you make it pay?” ‘Course I- you know- tapping him. So he said “Well, I’ve got a club. I fry that fish in big slices of cod, and I cut ‘em up and I charge ‘em half a crown a piece. See?” From the small slices he’d get half a crown, the big slices he’d get a dollar see. Cut – it’d be cut in half. Fried cod in this club he was serving in that club, Of course that time it was good money, So I thought to myself, right, he’s earning a few pound out of that then. Yeh, they was nice big long cod you know. And he was charging half a crown a small piece of fish. ‘Course now they charge five bob for a piece like that. And that’s why I told Teddy, I said “Ted, he’s told me he gets half a crown a piece in the club.” He was in the gambling club see, of a night time and they’d want a bit of fried fish, half a crown or and they got no limit to their money those gamblers and that’s how it goes. Well, anyhow I had my cod for nothing, they were satisfied and they could have got a fiver for the fish, the two porters. I think the guv – they had to give the guvnor thirty-five bob for that fish with the shilling for porterage. So they had the rest of the fiver between ‘em. And I had a fish for nothing, that cod, lovely big cod about six to eight pound easy, it was. I know it was a nice one. Enough food for all of us over the weekend, you know. Oh yeh. Yes, I said, you won’t give five pound for that fish and he says I will. ‘Course there was no one else had fish, it was like a holiday Monday, in the war. Food was short in the first world war.

This is the end of Alfred’s tales of life in London. I hope you have enjoyed it. The last sheet has some details of the people in his family:

Mr Gotts
Father c 1850 Carman
Mother: Cigarmaker Barmaid P part time hop picking
Siblings:
1 Mark died young
2 Joe Selling rabbits (hawker?) council worker
3 Fred Army service Bus driver, Mechanic, Own garage
4 Ted 1914-18 Skilled railway supervisor
5 Sid Carman, Docker
6 Mr Gotts
7 Sister Tailoress unmarried
8 Sister Tailoress Spouse warehouseman
9 Sister Tailoress Spouse Driver
Wife No work after marriage
Children;
Son Army, Police, taxi driver
Daughter ? Spouse ?

c/o British Library C707/366/1-8 P161-163) Click here for the beginning