Make Do And Mend was published in the UK in 1943, by the Ministry of Information, at a time when food and clothes were rationed. Every British citizen was permitted one egg a week, a modest cube of cheese and unlimited bread and vegetables. Coupons for clothes were cut from allowance books; enterprising women supplemented these rations with garments cut from curtains, and kohl pencil lines up the backs of their legs, to look like stockings. Their cookware was handed over to be turned into fusiland turned into aeroplanes. (And if all this wasn’t bad enough, their towns and cities were being bombed at night.)

This frugal tradition continued beyond the Second World War and into the 1950s, when the Manchester Evening News published Take a Tip : a collection of readers’ money saving titbits.

It’s funny, isn’t it? These little booklets have been hanging around for decades, unwanted and unread, gathering dust in attics and mouldering on charity shop shelves while we’ve been out spending and splurging on overpriced frivolites and cheap tat.

Now that we’re headed for a recession – a Depression, even, if the doomiest of the doom-mongers are to be believed – all these pearls of wisdom are suddenly relevant again. With our financial indexes plummeting, our markets in turmoil and our elected representatives banging heads with one another, this seems as good a time as any to revisit some of our forebears’ handiest household hints.

Here are some of my favourites:

From Make Do And Mend

Don’t waste a whole lemon if you only need a drop. Stick a skewer into the lemon and squeeze out the juice you need. Wrap the lemon in foil and keep it in the fridge.

Mend clothes before washing them as the tear or hole may become unmanageable. Keep a look out for loose buttons and other fastenings and mend at once. Save all tapes, ribbons, buttons, hooks and eyes and keep a well-stocked work basket.

Freeze leftover pieces of cake until you have enough to make a trifle.

Unwrap new soap and store it among towels and bedding. The soap will scent the linen and it will also harden making it last longer.

From Take A Tip

Leave two small dishes or bottles of disinfectant on your kitchen table and the flies will disappear. I have not had one in even during the recent heat-wave.

If you have been to the seaside in brown shoes and had sea water over them the best way to remove the stains is to dissolve a small lump of washing soda in two tablespoonfuls of hot milk.
Apply the solution to the stains by means of a rag, let it dry (a minute or two) and add a second application.
After this has dried, use ordinary shoe polish to clean them. The stains will disappear like magic.

To remove grease stains on fabric, sprinkle good coating of talcum powder over each stain. Leave it on for about ten minutes and then cover it with brown paper.
Press this with a not-too-hot iron and brush off the surplus powder and all the stains have gone.

To clean strawberries, soak them in water to which a teaspoonful of vinegar has been added. It is surprising to see what insects there are hidden in the fruit. Wash in clear water and drain though a sieve.

If the hearthrug wanders, stick the rubber rings from old jam jar lids to the corners and, at intervals along the edges, it will then stay put.

http://www.miss-thrifty.co.uk/2008/09/30/make-do-and-mend-vogue-for-the-credit-crunch-bunch/

http://www.miss-thrifty.co.uk/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Do-Mend-Official-Reproductns/dp/1843172658

http://www.homesweethomefront.co.uk/web_pages/hshf_squander_pg.htm

‘Make Do’ and ‘Mend’

Women were encouraged to ‘Make Do’ and ‘Mend’. A ‘Mrs. Sew and Sew’ featured in advertisements in women’s magazines and propaganda cinema clips promoted the idea of recycling textiles. To working class women who had always had to make do and mend this was all rather patronizing and nothing new.

Pillowcases would be turned into white shorts for summer. Wedding dresses would be worn several times, borrowed by sisters and friends, until the original 1939 bride in desperation for new items, remade the dress up into underwear, French Knickers or nightgowns. The only way to have feminine underwear was to sew it yourself. Skirts were made from men’s old plus fours or trousers. Cast offs would be made into children’s clothes. Collars would be added and trims applied all to eke out a limited wardrobe.

Women who could sew dresses had trouble getting hold of fabrics so they used everything from industrial blackout cloth to parachute silk or the harsher new parachute nylon. Blankets were used to make coats and old voluminous swagger coats cut into smaller garments. Pillowcases were trimmed with lace and made into blouses. Nothing was wasted and even milk top discs were covered in raffia and made into handbags or accessories.
Knitting in the War

Everyone hand knitted and knitted mitts and scarves and socks made up in open lacy patterns stretched yarns even further. The finer the yarn the more knitwear a person could produce, but it was mainly expert knitters that used very fine silky Mercerised cotton yarns.

Wool socks were unravelled to have the yarn intermixed with random colours in fair isle designs often to make short waist cardigans or V neck sleeveless waistcoats for either sex. You are reading an original Utility Clothing During Rationing article by Pauline Weston Thomas at www.fashion-era.com ©

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