On Sunday, September 8, 2013 2:55:43 PM UTC-7, James Silverton wrote:

James' memories are interesting.

>
> My family was not completely unusual in that we were a one-parent family
> with my father in the British army and perhaps better off than some. We
> did grow some vegetables in our small back yard both root and salad;
> lettuce, carrots and radishes I recall. Tomatoes did not grow out of
> doors in those days but we occasionally got some from uncles with
> green-houses.
>

The only time I was in the British Isles, I noticed tomatoes growing in
green houses in people's back yards. This was 30 years ago -- have things
changed?

>
> Ice cream was unrationed but not readily available. Like oranges, the
> word flashed around that a store was selling some and kids would descend
> on the place. As I recall there was usually one flavor called “vanilla”
> and it was very watery.

I recall reading that the young Margaret Thatcher was a research chemist
in J. Lyons' ice cream lab, so they must have been trying to improve things
after the war.

>
> Soft drinks were produced according to a set of government rules and
> sold with the same drab uninteresting labels wherever you could buy it
> and most proprietary drinks like Coca-Cola just disappeared. I had known
> Coke before the war and I still remember when it became available again
> in 1945.

Interesting. I remember reading that, cut off from the source of syrup, Coca-Cola people in Germany kept the plant going during the war with
whatever flavorings and sweeteners they could scrounge,
and that this was the origin of the Fanta (for Fantasy) line.